The Sword of Kaigen, page 34
Losing his sword should have thrown him off, but he had built up too much momentum to let anything slow him down. He was a Matsuda. His sword wasn’t made of ice or metal. It was his soul. Mist and snow rushed to his hands as the last of the distance between himself and his enemy collapsed.
The fonyaka’s next palm strike hit the best impromptu ice shield Mamoru had ever formed. The shield’s hardened outer layer shattered, while the snow cushion beneath absorbed the impact, blunting the force of the palm strike before it reached the innermost ice sheet that protected Mamoru’s arms. The techniques canceled each other out, causing both fighters to stumble back only a few steps instead of sending them both flying.
Regaining his footing, Mamoru threw what remained of his shield at the fonyaka. In the dinma the black-clad man took to swat the inner layer of the shield aside, Mamoru raised his hands and locked his jiya into the still airborne pieces of the outer layer. The ice had broken along planned seams, creating sharp-edged shards.
Let’s see you dodge this, Mamoru thought, and yanked his hands inward, bringing those hundreds of sharp pieces racing toward the fonyaka. Even the most agile fighter couldn’t dodge his way through a hail of projectiles this thick.
At the glint of approaching ice, the fonyaka let out a short sound of surprise. Then he spun. Damn! Mamoru had forgotten he could do that! The rotation created a protective whirlwind around the fonyaka. The cyclone wrapped around him like a cocoon, catching Mamoru’s hundreds of tiny projectiles and flinging them away. Some of the ice shards flew wide. Most of them, however, shot straight toward Mamoru, propelled by a deadly combination of his own jiya and his enemy’s fonya.
He had to push sharply outward with his jiya to avoid getting hit by his own projectiles. His reflexes saved him from fatal injury, though some of the ice struck him in the shoulders and thighs. His opponent didn’t leave him time for the pain to set in.
The fonyaka’s pivoting feet were as subtle as they were quick. Mamoru wouldn’t have picked up the movement with his eyes alone, but he was so attuned to the water around him at that moment that he felt the shift in the snow beneath the soldier’s boots. Even knowing the spinning kick was coming and having seen it in action, Mamoru barely managed to drop into a crouch in time to avoid it. He let out a breath of relief as the kick whooshed over his head, missing him completely. What he hadn’t counted on was the second kick.
He registered the black boot snapping toward his head too late to evade. All he could do was bring an arm up to protect his head. The roundhouse crashed into his forearm, which then crashed into his face, throwing him sideways. His head rang as if it had taken a full force kick and his arm—he was fairly sure something in his arm had broken. But oddly, it didn’t hurt. Flooded with fighter’s madness, he was far past feeling any pain. He spun out of the blow smiling, his fists up, ice sharpening across his knuckles.
The fighter’s high must have lent him speed because he managed to deflect the snakelike hand technique the fonyaka aimed at his neck. He feinted a punch at the fonyaka’s face with one hand, using the other to target the man’s injured shoulder. If Tou-sama had already done half the damage for him, maybe— The dragon killer saw through it. He barely bothered to dodge the feint, letting the weak blow clip his cheek, and parried the stronger punch Mamoru aimed at his shoulder.
Sensing the fonyaka shifting back, Mamoru seized a handful of the man’s black uniform. He couldn’t let the dragon killer out of close range. He had seen the kind of attack this man could throw from his optimal striking distance and had no intention of letting him set up another one. Mamoru yanked the man forward.
The dragon killer didn’t seem to mind, drawing his arm back to throw a punch—a bizarrely telegraphed move for such an apt fighter. Mamoru brought his right hand up to block, but somehow—inexplicably—the fonyaka’s punch passed through it.
The blow caught Mamoru in the stomach, bringing the world to an abrupt halt.
A dull throb pulsed through his abdomen as a smile twisted the corner of the dragon killer’s mouth.
“Got you,” he said in broken Kaigengua.
For a moment, Mamoru was so surprised to hear words—words he understood—coming out of the demon’s mouth that all he could do was blink.
Then he felt the blood soaking into his hakama, and it dawned on him that the attack he had just taken hadn’t been a punch at all. Shock melted into dread as he looked down.
The thumb and first two fingers of his sword hand were gone, sliced off at the second knuckles. There was a blade lodged beneath his ribs—long, bright, and strangely familiar. Mamoru couldn’t understand where the weapon had come from until his eyes fell on teal wrapping and serpent’s coils. It was his sword. The dragon killer had caught it on its way down.
Mamoru’s mind stuttered, confusion, denial, and begrudging awe grinding against one another like wedges of ice on a breaking river. His own sword... Did that mean the fonyaka had planned this whole exchange of blows? From the moment he knocked the weapon from Mamoru’s hand? Was he really that good? If so, Mamoru had never stood a chance. Then again, maybe the wound wasn’t as deep as it looked. Maybe he could still fight. He could still—
The dragon killer ripped the blade free and Mamoru watched his own insides spill from his body. Reality overcame him like river waters breaking through the last of winter’s ice. I’m dead, he realized with chilling clarity.
I’m dead.
Chapter 17: The End
“Misaki?” a voice said above her. Why was her chest full of knives? Gods, it hurt so much! “Misaki!”
Her eyes blinked open and she was surprised to see that there were not, in fact, several blades buried in her torso. She was in one piece, the only bleeding from the jagged cuts on her forearms. Setsuko was staring down at her with tears in her eyes.
“Misaki! Oh, thank Nami you’re alright!” Before Misaki could react, the other woman had wrapped her in a crushing hug that sent new spikes of pain through her ribs. And Misaki remembered: the flash of fan blades, a skinless arm, Lazou Linghun sucking the breath from her lungs.
What are you doing? Misaki tried to say. Get back! Go back and hide! But when she opened her mouth, only a wheezing groan came out.
“Yosh, yosh,” Setsuko soothed, rubbing her back. “You’re going to be okay.”
“H-how...” Misaki whispered and felt her eyes watering with pain. How could making a single sound hurt so much? “How... lo-ong...?”
“How long were you out?” Setsuko said. “Just a few dinmanu, I think. I just heard all this terrible screaming, and I know you said to stay in the cellar, but I had to... I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she babbled, “But I had to make sure you were alright. You passed out just as I came into the room. And-and there’s so much blood in here! I didn’t know whose it was and I-I thought you might be dead, Misaki! What happened?”
Mutely, Misaki shook her head. Setsuko wasn’t supposed to know. She wasn’t supposed to know any of this.
“So, this girl here...” Setsuko said, nodding to the partially beheaded, partially skinned mess that had been the fan-wielding fonyaka. “Did you kill her?”
Squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, Misaki nodded.
“And all those men in the halls? Was that you too?” Setsuko spoke slowly, as though she was almost afraid to know the answer. But there was no point trying to lie, so she nodded again.
“Great Nami, Misaki!”
Misaki kept her eyes shut, not wanting to see Setsuko’s expression of horror. She waited in agony for her sister-in-law to recoil, push her away. Instead, Setsuko clutched her tighter.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” Setsuko’s voice broke into a sob. “What would we have done? What would we have done without you?”
That was when Misaki felt it: a vague sense that there was still a living fonyaka nearby. She gripped Setsuko’s shoulders and gritted her teeth, trying to form words.
“Get... back...” she managed finally. Setsuko wasn’t safe here.
“I’m sorry,” Setsuko said as Misaki’s feeling solidified into a certainty. Somewhere in the next room, a fonyaka, was winding up for an attack. “I know you said to stay hidden, but when I heard the screams, I just couldn’t—”
“Back!” Misaki shoved Setsuko with all the strength left in her body—just as the neighboring wall exploded.
The wind sent Misaki tumbling across the wood. She put her hands over her head, hoping that her push had been enough to put Setsuko out of range of the debris biting into her forearms and clattering across the floor around her.
Get up! Her mind screamed even as the numbness of shock and impact pulsed through her limbs. Get up and fight!
Her body wouldn’t do it. Everything hurt so much.
All she wanted was to lie down and let this new attacker kill her. Let it end. But her life wasn’t the only one in the balance. Because Setsuko was there—perhaps only because Setsuko was there—she planted her hands on the floor and tried to stand. She never did make it to her feet.
Instead, a hand seized her loose hair and yanked her upward, wrenching a cry from her damaged lungs. It was the scarred fonyaka. The blood dripping from his head made Misaki glad she hadn’t taken the full impact of the fan-wielder’s attack, as he had. The impact had likely left him unconscious for a few siiranu, but it didn’t seem to have weakened him. With what seemed like an effortless swing of his arm, he hurled Misaki across the kitchen.
She hit the table where Mamoru and Chul-hee had been studying and tumbled across it, shattering teacups and scattering scrolls. When she collapsed onto the tatami on the far side of the table, her whole body seemed to pulse with forming bruises. Her scalp stung and there was now a screaming pain in her neck to rival that in her lungs. Fighting the stars crowding her vision, she gripped the side of the table and tried to stand, but her body was shaking so badly she couldn’t do it. Blinking through the stars, she could just make out the scarred fonyaka striding toward her.
“Stop it!” a voice shouted and Misaki turned to see Setsuko brandishing a kitchen knife. “Leave her alone!”
“No!” Misaki’s eyes widened, panic driving her to her feet. “Setsuko, don’t!”
Too late. Setsuko had already run at the soldier, raising the knife to stab. The fonyaka’s casual backhand sent her smashing through the kitchen’s back door.
“No!” Misaki screamed. “No! No!” She rushed forward—to go to Setsuko? To attack the man? With her mind scrambled from the impact, she wasn’t even sure, but the fonyaka moved faster.
He caught her around the throat and slammed her back down on the floor. At this point, Misaki didn’t even know if killing this man would make a difference. She would live, yes, but when the next soldiers entered the house, she would be far too weak to fight them off. She was tempted to give up, let him kill her—but he had hit Setsuko, so he was going to die.
She didn’t resist as he straddled her and put both hands around her neck to strangle her. Instead, she focused her jiya into two fingers. As he pressed his considerable weight down on her windpipe, he put himself close enough to give her a clear shot through his left eye.
Blood Needle ready, she drew her hand back and—
A blade struck the man in the neck.
Misaki started. Her immediate thought was that Setsuko had woken up and come to her aid. But when her eyes flicked from Siradenyaa’s glass tip to her hilt, it wasn’t Setsuko she found clutching the handle.
It was Hiroshi.
The five-year-old was barely big enough to hold the lightweight sword in both hands, but his stance was solid and his gaze fixed.
Above Misaki, the fonyaka’s face twisted in a grimace. He was wounded but not dead. Blood squirted grotesquely from the cut in his neck as he straightened up and turned to face his attacker. Hiroshi didn’t flinch as the drops spattered his face and chest.
“Hiro—” Misaki started, but the fonyaka put a foot on her chest, slamming her back down so hard her head spun.
Still holding Misaki to the floor with his boot, the soldier looked down at Hiroshi, incredulous. Offended almost. Misaki’s heart lurched in panic, but there was no fear on Hiroshi’s face, no hesitation. He didn’t even pause to adjust his grip on the weapon before he slashed again, opening a clean cut from the man’s hip to his collarbone.
The fonyaka made a strange noise and reached out as if to grab at Hiroshi. Shoving the boot from her chest, Misaki scrambled to her feet to defend her son. But the man only stumbled and crashed to the floor. His fonya rose for a moment, rushing through the room in a howl of denial, then went still.
Hiroshi had killed him.
Blood dribbled down his blank face as he turned to face Misaki. “You’re safe now, Kaa-chan.”
With something like a sob, Misaki snatched the sword from his hands and flung it away. She grabbed her son by the shoulders—roughly, her breathing too quick, near hysteria.
Why would you do that? she wanted to scream, to shake him. Why would you do that?
But Hiroshi was only five. He had only done what he had been taught by his teachers, his distant father, and his monster of a mother. They had created a little boy who was ready to give his life to kill his enemies. A true Matsuda. Misaki’s head dropped onto Hiroshi’s tiny shoulder. The monster crumbled and she was just a woman, just a mother who had failed her son.
“Hiroshi...” her voice broke. “Come here.”
Gathering the boy into her arms, she held him tight, and loved him, loved him as hard as she could, and hoped it would be enough to wash everything else away.
Hiroshi, as always, was cold.
MAMORU
The dragon killer stepped back and cast aside the nameless sword, now red with its owner’s blood.
Mamoru swayed.
Blood drizzled from the stumps of his fingers onto the frozen ground. It was a strange sensation, feeling the liquid that carried his nyama leaving him to seep out onto the mountain. His vision slid. But it couldn’t be over. It just couldn’t. If he could just force himself to move, push through it, it would all be alright. He took a step... and another... fell to one knee. His mangled hand hit the snow—
And the world snapped into focus.
The pain was sharp, but small, unimportant somehow. Suddenly, it wasn’t as though he was missing fingers. His fingers were the snow. They were the rivers, reaching all the way down the mountain to sink into the ocean and grasp the power of gods. He wasn’t bleeding out. He was the mountain. For the first time in his life, he was perfectly, overwhelmingly whole.
He smiled.
A decade later, a fifteen-year-old Hiroshi would become known as the youngest swordsman ever to master the Whispering Blade. What the world would never know, was that he was the second youngest.
By the time the Ranganese soldier registered the blood-red flash of ice, it had already passed through his body. The sword was pure Matsuda—half Takayubi snow, half Mamoru’s own blood—and it cut through the dragon killer like he was no more than air.
Alone on the mountainside, a Whispering Blade caught the last rays of a dying sun. It gleamed once, pointed skyward, as its first and only victim hit the snow. Then, its work done, the sword fell to mist. The sun sank to the sea.
Mamoru didn’t feel the jiya ebb from his body, didn’t feel himself fall. All he knew was that his cheek lay numb against the icy ground as the last of the red left the sky.
I did it, he thought, and the blood spreading from his body seemed unimportant. Tou-sama, Kaa-chan, I did it! He couldn’t wait to tell them!
If part of him was lucid enough to understand that he was never going to see his parents again, he ignored it. The power that had just filled him was too big not to be remembered. He had touched divinity, held it in his hands. He didn’t hear the thunder of approaching planes or the loudspeakers announcing the arrival of reinforcements.
As he and the dragon killer had fought, their feet had churned the surrounding snow into waves, like the brine at the beginning of the world. Red from Mamoru’s fingers snaked through those waves to mix with the blood slowly seeping from the other man’s body. Blood became snow, became blood, became ocean... and Mamoru found his eyes frozen open, staring into the dragon killer’s face.
It wasn’t a frightening face or even a particularly foreign one—pale skin, black eyes, and sharp features, much like Mamoru’s own. In a different uniform, the man could have been an upperclassman or a young teacher at Kumono Academy. People always said the Ranganese were demons of a different breed from the Kaigenese, but their blood seemed to be the same color, now that they lay still, letting it run together. They had all come out of the same ocean, hadn’t they? At the beginning of the world?
The dragon killer didn’t look like he had felt any pain. If anything, he looked faintly surprised, his eyes wide and his lips parted. Just a human. Here with Mamoru at the end of the living world. As his body grew warm and numb, Mamoru wondered if this fonyaka had someone to remember him across the ocean—a father, a mother, someone who would be proud to hear that he had died on the Sword of Kaigen.
Chapter 18: The Shelter
Misaki started at the sound of a crash, clutching Hiroshi tighter to her. But the young fonyaka who appeared in the doorway was already dead, his spine snapped by a single pale hand around his neck. A wave of icy jiya overtook her as Takeru threw the boy’s limp body aside and stepped into the room.
“You’re a mess,” he said by way of greeting. “Both of you. Where are Setsuko and the other children?”
“S-Setsuko is unconscious,” Misaki said, pointing to the next room. Her jiya had quickly confirmed that her sister-in-law’s heart was still beating, but she wasn’t sure what damage she might have sustained. She hadn’t quite gotten herself to move, not wanting to let go of her son. “Izumo, Nagasa, and Ayumi are hidden in the cellar.”
