Akuma no Ran: Chapter 2: Night of Daggers

Satomine's impulsive quest

Weeping brokenly, it was some time before Satomine became aware of the world around him, his sorrow such that he could think only of returning the head to the family of Yoshinobu in Oyasippuri. The fortress of Oyasippuri was built four centuries prior during the age of Heijo-kyo, during the reign of Tensen-tennou with the first lord of the keep a member of the Tahara-clan, with Yoshinobu’s ancestor at that time little more than an enforcer for him. That man’s great-grandson was to prove himself both as a bushi and as a loyal servant, in the Second Wars of Darkness so that he was the castle and its surrounding lands. This warrior was to expand and improve the original estate a great deal, such that he was to triple the castle in size.

Startled from his stupour by the sound of one of the guards, Satomine looked all about before he took the head and put it away into the salt container he had stolen from the monastery to the south. Nimble though he was, the bushi was to make his way in the opposite direction of where he had heard the sound, desperate to find his way once more to the ground before he was discovered.

Satomine kept to the shadows cursing the fact that he was no longer dressed in his armour, prayers falling from his lips, not unlike rain from the skies in the middle of autumn. Waiting with bated breath, eyes on the wall-walkway he had crossed during his quick dash to and from where the skull had been placed.

Expectation and apprehension mingled together into a poisoned ball deep within his chest so that he was to grip the hilt of his katana with fingers that soon became white as snow, such was the tension that gripped him in turn. To the surprise of the man pressed against the watchtower wall there was no warrior who passed him by. It was simply the wind. The sentry was to hurry along back to his previous post without ever taking notice of the missing head, having turned away and gone back the way he had come.

Heaving a gusty sigh of relief, Satomine was grateful the other man had turned away. Passing back through the guard-tower, past the corpses of those guards he had slain upon first arriving in the tower, intent upon reaching the ladder that he had climbed but a few minutes prior. When he had climbed it, it was to find the pair of guards preoccupied by a game of dice, with neither of them having noticed him as he drew himself up to his feet whereupon he slew them as quickly and as silently as could be imagined.

Climbing down the ladder in the same manner that he had despatched the guards with, at this time the youth sparing nary a glance in any direction so intent was he upon his duty came very near, to having his heart leap into his throat and choking upon it. Quite what it was he ought to do next he did not quite know, he only knew to return the salt filled bag to the Takimoto. Or perhaps he ought to seek vengeance? He knew what Yorinaka, Yoshinobu’s heir would do: Eight years his senior the other bushi would surely have left already for Oyasippuri with nary any hint of hesitation, unlike Satomine.

“You! Guard!” Someone called startling the disguised bushi.

It was Yorinaga the head of the Haraguchi family. Recognizing him at once, Satomine froze unsure of what to do.

Full of indecision he turned about to face him, with the sight of the powerful Emishi chieftain and his dozen guards dressed in their raiment which though similar to the kimonos and haoris of the south, were different, made of fur there were few points of comparison between them, with this serving to knock the air from his lungs. No longer certain and full of fright, he was to stutter a broken reply that died as quickly as it had come to his lips.

“Why are you not thereupon the wall, keeping watch?” the feudal lord demanded of the youth who shook in what he thought fear at having been caught. It was when he drew near to him that the heir of Shirojo had a flash of realization. “You? Who are you?”

“I-I come from-” Satomine whispered weakly.

“That accent… You came north with Hidemasu did you not?” Yorinaga guessed at once.

Stricken as he was caught betwixt fear and his allegiance to the code his father and Yoshinobu had instilled in him since his earliest childhood. A bushi as he had been taught was sworn to the truth and therefore could not lie outright. Thinking it hardly an untruth, he chose to nod his head if hesitantly, hopeful that none of his doubt showed on his face.

Looking him up and down, the general’s so dark at first soon became bright with amusement, so that he slapped the shoulder of the youth after a moment’s thought. “Checking up on those still on duty are we? How very dutiful of you!”

Breathing a little more easily when he realized the other man did not recognize him, which meant that his taking up the raiment of the first Emishi he had come across near the fortress after days on the road, had succeeded in disguising him. When he had first donned the fur clothes of the northern-people he had not expected that it might fool one of the generals of the enemy army. Yoshinobu had always gone out of his way to memorize the faces and names of those in his army, and also to know from whence they came.

Directed towards the palace by Yorinaga, he was after a short moment of hesitation to ask him, “If you have finished with bothering the men thereupon the walls, do hurry back inside as the walls are not your concern,” Yorinaga pointed to the high citadel his mien serious and furious as that of a charging bull.

Doing as bidden the bushi with a worried glance over his shoulder at the general, stepped away towards the house of the King of the Emishi, his teeth sinking into his lip until he very nearly drew blood grateful also that he still had the bag that held his lord’s head. Once past the gates, and within the courtyard he was to glance all about in every direction. The exterior hallways were long and where the sides were concerned exposed to nature, with the courtyards long and in possession of magnificent gardens full of trees and small ponds. The Emishi did not believe in pruning their trees quite in the same fashion in the south, so that some were wild and thus grew all throughout the small enclosed area. As to the hallways they had the tiled roofs of the southern halls and covered the hallways as was custom, yet with some of the corridors snaking about into interior places the corridors adopted an oppressive air about them and a gloomy air that seemed haunted.

Carving a path through the palace hallways he was to avoid as best he could those servants and guards who expressed the most curiosity about the sack he carried. He was to explain to a number of those he came across, “This is a gift for the Lord, where is he?”

Pointed in the correct direction by a number of them, he could not help but feel a sense of unease. He knew only that his path had been set for him from the moment Yorinaga had approached him.

The further he made his way thither into the fortress, the more lost he soon felt as he moved from hallway to hallway, from courtyard to courtyard. It was only as he made the same turn for what was the fifth time that he was to realize he was trapped.

Espying one of the nearby wooden beams that supported the wooden pagoda roof, Satomine looked all about to ensure no one was nearby that might see him ‘misbehave’. Once he had made certain that he was truly alone, he took up his katana and slashed at the column.

*****

When Masaki had been told to report to Motonaga he had felt only irritation, yet now as he stood inside the estate of Oyasippuri he fumed at how he the head of the Shōtoku branch of the Takimoto was made to bow before the Emishi-King rather than continuing the prosecution of the war.

Sulking he was to scowl at every man he came across, “I shan’t believe I must endure such a humiliation; to bow to the nobility is one thing yet to kneel before this Emishi-King is a different matter altogether!”

Accompanied by more than a half dozen retainers, along with his renowned son Katsurō, the most venerated archer in the whole of Hokutō and the favourite of his many sons. It was him alone he tended to consult with regarding every single matter that pertained to the clan. Lord of Shōtoku, since he had first turned sixteen years of age Masaki had ruled over the lands left to him by his father, who was executed as a traitor after he had refused to pay his tithes and those of his people to the third nephew of the then head of the Western Tahara clan, Tahara no Michinori. Only Yoshinobu had ever treated him with honour, for which he had liked him and had wished to wed his eldest son to the man’s third daughter, Akemi. It was because of the man’s preference to save her hand for a guard’s son, that had stung his pride. What was worse was that the man had wed his own son to Tahara no Nobunori’s daughter, Michi no Hime, passing on another of Masaki’s children a second time. The knowledge that the other bushi had chosen to mingle his bloodline with that of Michinori was thus more than Masaki could possibly bear.

Masaki grumbled under his breath, “I shan’t believe, I must endure this!”

“Yet endure it we must father,” said Katsurō shortly as he advanced by his side.

His choice in words did not go unnoticed by his sire who asked of him, “We?”

“Our fates are bound together, father, your victory is mine and mine yours,” the heir of the Shōtoku branch of the Takimoto retorted bringing tears to the eyes of his father wherefore the youth added sharply with a glance at the older man. “And your betrayal is my own, and thy sin is my sin also.”

The rebuke behind his words were as a knife in his father’s heart, so that the older man looked on his son with a wounded look. “What I did, I did for all of us.”

“Why you did it is immaterial, all that matters is that we show the proper respect to this… akuma!”

Nodding glumly Masaki turned one corner only to give the wooden beam that supported the roof another glance just before he let loose a great cry, one that echoed throughout the whole estate. “What is this?”

“What is it father?” Katsurō asked of him bewildered.

“Someone has slashed at this beam here!” Masaki howled not unlike a wounded wolf such was the offense he took at the damage done to a single beam of the grand estate they currently found themselves in. It was but one heartbeat later that he brought even more attention to the vandalized bit of wood for his cry soon echoed still farther inside the estate. Such was the panic it caused among the residents of the estate that half a dozen men almost tripped over one another to reach him. Each of them had but words of consternation on their lips, and none of action. “What has happened?!”

Others shrieked, “Someone has damaged the property of the Kiyomoto clan!”

It was the first man on the scene; a youth with flashing eyes and a large wide-brimmed wooden hat atop his head, dressed in the travel garments of one of Hidemasu’s men, he had come barrelling out from one of the rooms across from their present position in the exterior hallway of the estate. Sliding the door open he had arrived hither with a sharp cry and a greater howl of horror at the sight of the wooden beam than even the likes of Masaki. “This is worse than any act of murder!”

His cry was one that won for him the immediate approval of Masaki who was to proclaim loudly, “Good man! Now let us find the man guilty for this act of wanton vandalism!”

“Well said tono!” The man declared before he turned away to address the servants in a severe voice. “You three alert the local carpenters and have this block replaced,” turning to another group, “You four I shall task with the honour of alerting all the men in the estate of this travesty. And you five ought to close the estate to any people not already present herewith us at present. Will this suffice tono?”

Both Masaki and Katsurō blinked in surprise. Whoever this man was, he was not simply some lesser Samurai but a man of some worth. He was a man gifted with a natural talent for authority and could thus be trusted not to abuse that which they might grant him. Whispering between themselves father and son turned as one to those servants and guards who had not done as bidden.

Commanding them to do as they had been told, Masaki rounded upon the man he assumed to be one of the Emishi men in Hidemasu’s service and said. “Follow, you shall present what has happened here to Kiyomoto-dono.”

“Yes, tono,” murmured the stranger with a flash of relief in his dark eyes.

Bowing the bushi fell into step after them, comporting himself with all the humility of one who knew himself to be a Samurai and not a Lord. This was a rare quality in any man, Masaki mused rather more impressed by him than he wished to admit. It was the way of the world in that age that men knew not when to be humble and when to take command.

If the father was impressed by the youth, his son glanced from one man to the other with his gaze darkening with suspicion when he glanced over the shoulder of the Lord of Shōtoku, while he addressed the newcomer. “Why were you in yon room?”

The other bushi stopped walking wherefore he muttered, “I was in the midst of a nap as it was not yet my shift on watch-duty, we men sworn to Hidemasu must do our part or wait to do so as is proper.”

*****

Guiding him through the remaining six hallways to the principal hall, one which led to the courtyard and which had a cushion at one end of it, and the stairs that led to the courtyard at the other. It was a place with white sliding doors and an array of spears and arrows that lined the left-hand side of the large room. The cushion also had a small table, for the lord of the castle to lean upon and with the image of a tiger painted into the wall behind where he might have sat. It was an imposing and beautiful room. It was just as it was in the home of Yoshinobu where the most important of decisions were made and from where the Lord of the Kiyomoto ruled from.

The clan may well have established itself in the Second Wars of Darkness when the Great League took place. It was the founder of the lineage who fought valiantly for the Tennou. This ancestor Naosuke had fought well, being of mixed-Emishi heritage he had felt a kinship with the south and had sought to gather the Emishi behind him in a grand cross-channel alliance with the mainland kingdoms of the Emishi people, and with that of the Emperor of Zipangu. This was the northern ‘league’ of the Great League that comprised the three great nations at the time, with Naosuke having fought in more than a hundred battles under the banner of the Tennou until his death in the battle of Mikotagahara. Later his son, who had escaped that battle took up the leadership of the fledgling Kiyomoto and the other Emishi clans that had joined with them, and led them to victory. This son had been granted inordinate honours, including a marriage to a princess of the line of mainland Kings it was said, so that Ryuzo was at times called the ‘Great’ by his people.

Studying the room with a great deal of interest it was thus that Masaki was to begin to notice just how surprised the guardsman was. How odd, he mused pondering if the guard was truly who he said he was with the general wondering whether he might have him brought into his own service once this trip was at an end.

Strange he told himself ere he was distracted by the sudden arrival of the steward of castle Oyasippuri, Senbei who had arrived with an air of importance said to him, whilst he was distracted. “Tono it is with reluctance that I have come hither to inform you and all others herewith ye, that Motonaga-dono has retired to the shrine to Cikap-kamuy.”

“What? What in heaven’s name is he doing there?” Katsurō asked confused, exchanging a worried glance with his father who stepped forward.

“Return thither to the temple, tell him-”

“Go back? Have you gone daft? I will not step back one foot into that place!” The heavily bearded steward said as he shook his head from side to side visibly terrified.

Scowling at him furiously the Lord of Shōtoku grumbled under his breath while his son went on to shout at him. “If you do not go back at once we will kill you!”

Though they would have been well within their rights to strike him dead in the view of Masaki, who having never much liked the Emishi-people could hardly bring himself to keep from shouting alongside his heir. Such was the great swell of exasperation that arose in him that he very nearly drew his katana to hew the steward, Senbei down.

The other man’s mortal fear of the former King of the Emishi left him fairly disconcerted. Hardly willing to retreat without having spoken to his co-conspirators he turned to go back the way he had come. “Naught we can do save go speak to him.”

Masaki still interested in what they might discover regarding Hidemasu from the guard they had met en route there, turned to consult with him only to glance about in confusion which in turn drew an irritated comment from his son. “What is it father?”

“That guard, the one who guided us hither… I shan’t find him?”

*****

Hurrying from the keep in the hopes that he might reach the temple ere Masaki and his son might, Satomine raced along the village, no longer paying any mind to whether someone (such as Hidemasu) might catch him there of all places. Wholly consumed by this time by that same passion and hatred for the enemy that had brought him this far, he had thoughts only for the killing of the enemy. He might well have plunged to his doom then if it were not for the sudden appearance of Hidemasu within the vicinity of the same city and the sound of his herald crying out his arrival before the gate.

Shaken from the veil of madness that had gripped him hitherto that moment, Satomine blinked and glanced from the gates to the city to those that led to the temple which beckoned as strongly as ever before. The sole difference between then and now he realized was that there was another call that rang and echoed deep within his being. That of his outrage at the betrayal of Yoshinobu resonated with equal fervour to the other great call.

Forced to choose between them he bit his lower lip struggling against his will to place one foot before the other.

It happened that someone from the estate proper recognized him and was en route towards the temple, “You! Are you not the man who was with Takimoto-dono?” He asked as he took the bushi wholly unawares.

Leaping several dozen feet in the air, Satomine his heart in his throat, it took him some time before he could speak properly, “I do not-”

“I must deliver this message, yet shan’t bring myself to go thither to the temple to the Kamuy Cikap since that Emishi-King found his way yonder.” The other man said quietly with a shiver and a glance in the direction of the temple in question.

Much as he might well have wished to refuse this peculiar request he knew at once to accept if he longed to truly kill Motonaga. Nodding his head hesitantly he was however pleased when the other man handed him a letter, “It happens hat Senbei-dono wished to have this letter delivered to Motonaga-dono ere the arrival hither of Takimoto or Takimoto no Hidemasu.”

Annoyed by the other man, when he went to follow after him, Satomine had to fight to keep from clicking in disapproval. Looking at the other man, he asked of him, “Yes?”

“I must accompany thee to the gates to ensure you do indeed intend to deliver my liege’s message to the King.” Replied the servant with an earnest smile that could have charmed a bird off of a branch.

Satomine might well have liked to hew the other man down at that moment, yet he could not help but swallow the bile and curses that reached his lips. Nodding his head, hurriedly before he motioned for the servant to guide him, he swallowed alongside his frustration his anger and fear.

“Your accent sounds rough and southern, if you do not mind my saying so, yet you bear the look of one of us,” the servant remarked casually.

“How so?”

“It is as though you are as mixed as the ancient Naosuke was,” the servant remarked cheerily, “A shame your blood has the southern taint.”

Reluctantly, Satomine admitted if reluctantly, “My grandmother that is to say my father’s mother was an Emishi woman. She was the daughter of a northern fisherman, and captured the eye of my grandfather.”

“A shame she wed a man from the south,” the servant remarked only to sigh, “Though I must confess that at times I do ponder about how different we truly are. Northern and southern courts, both seem wholly self-conceited and self-absorbed, concerned only with themselves and with how they might get ahead, I suppose there is not much difference between us servants and peasant people in the north or south.”

It was an interesting perspective. It was a perspective that though he might not always have listened to, had he not been incognito, Satomine had long felt to be true. In his view the nobility had always seemed lofty, and distant so that he could not truly understand, nor did he feel any kinship towards them having never visited Miyako he could not understand or properly imagine them. It might have seemed closed-minded, but having never been to the great city and having been raised in the country, he imagined it to be the same except larger, something that the older bushi had told him was patently false. There were no similarities or points of comparison between the great city of Miyako and the Takimoto castles and lands to the north.

*****

Arriving before the gates but a few minutes later, he was to then once again be the recipient of a deep bow wherefore the older man turned about to return to the estate from whence he had come. “Thank you.”

Irritated, Satomine was to study the servant in question with hard eyes. It was all he could do to keep from chasing the man down to ask of him what he had meant when he had said that it felt as though something were at an end with the arrival of Motonaga. Confused by this statement he was to however fail to find the appropriate excuse to retain his companionship if only for a moment or three longer. Dismissing his own misgivings and uncertainty, he was to press onwards past the gates he ordinarily might have begun to look about for fear of guards yet as he could not find the barest hint of one of them, even from the corner of his eyes so that a small part of him felt an immediate surge of apprehension at the thought of venturing further, yet this he did.

He had to stride forward no matter what horror he had felt at the time when Yoshinobu was cruelly slain. Having witnessed that very vision he could not help feeling a surge of contempt for his own momentary weakness.

Forward he went, fiercer and more resolved than hitherto then.

*****

The temple though large was not built in a complex manner so that it did not take the bushi very long to find his way to the main hall where he fully expected to find the ancient yet young Motonaga, so that it was his view that he ought to be prepared for any sudden attack from the enemy. What Satomine expected to find was the enemy within the main hall at the foot of the statue of the Kamuy. What he did not expect was the possibility that the statue might be removed.

Startled when he slid the door open to discover not only this but also Motonaga seated in place of it, a sight that so grossly offended him that he was to come nearer than ever before to charge forward in order to slash the man’s head from his shoulders. Kamuy or Kami, it made little difference to him, as blasphemy against them in their shrine was not something he could stomach.

Resolved to punish this stranger for this sacrilege and the others he had committed, Satomine was to enter the hall quiet as death itself. Gliding across the long twenty-two meters hall, his eyes moving from side to side in search of anyone else that might be present. Pleased to find it empty of all others, he only when he had crossed halfway across the room noticed the black candles lit all around the seated figure.

Hand on the pommel of his katana he slit it to the hilt proper, his heart beating so hard against his chest that he was almost convinced it might burst forth from his chest, such was the immensity of the apprehension that weighed down upon him. Such feelings were as naught compared to the excitement and lust for blood that thrummed beneath his skin, his breath coming out in long dog like pants.

Eyes glittering darkly, he bared his teeth not unlike a wolf, as he drew up before the seated, kneeling man. Stepping around one of the tall dark candles he came very near to drawing the katana girt to his belt when he caught sight of the blade placed before the man. Kazokiri.

Between this and the fact that the wicked Motonaga’s breathing was even, he knew to mean that the other man was asleep, which he offered sincere thanks to Hachiman for. He knew that this could not be other than a gift sent to assist him in this quest to avenge the noble Yoshinobu. Pleased when he saw the sword, he was however against his will hesitate once more. Kazokiri, was more than some tool of war for the Takimoto. It was their most prized heirloom.

Hardly able to repress the urge to once he had seized it to keep from drawing the blade to wield it against Motonaga. Only the knowledge that all save the Takimoto were forbidden from drawing and using the weapon, and that as a servant of the family he was bound still by their rulings. Deciding upon his own katana he was to make to strike the head of the beastly enemy warrior from his shoulders.

I will do this, I must do this! Satomine told himself, resolved to put an end to the murderer of Yoshinobu, yet when he went to perform his duty he found himself frozen in place. It was only when he sought once more to swing his arm that he glanced about in search of the cause behind his inability to move so much as a muscle.

All he could see was the thickest black fog he had ever seen in all his life. Confused, and angered by his own weakness, he gritted his teeth and fought with all that he had to move even one millimetre. He had an obligation, and he would carry it out no matter this strange black fog.

It was hardly discernible or it might have been to anyone or it might have been to anyone who might have chanced to see him then yet in utter defiance of the black fog he moved his left foot ever so slightly to the left.

Sword quivering ever so slightly, he tremblingly moved to the side so that when the candle nearest to him vacillated over with him the candle’s flame caught at once on the wooden floor of the temple. Pushing himself up with some difficulty as the black fog continued to sap away at his strength.

It was however when he sought to regain his feet that he found himself staring into the eyes of Motonaga. Smouldering and commanding the eyes of the larger man seemed to penetrate the very marrow of Satomine’s being.

Those eyes were destined to follow him into his nightmares, so terrible and so dark were they that he could not in his lowliest of moments have imagined such a horrid vision. Flashing with ancient fury that no man of any age after that of his own could possibly ever have imagined or ever understood. All that Satomine knew and grasped then was that he could no more have destroyed this man- no this thing he corrected himself than he could the seven isles of Zipangu.

It was with considerable trepidation that Satomine threw himself backwards in the hopes that he might survive the seconds that followed and live long enough to determine how he might slay the inhuman beast.

“By what right did you come hither blade in hand?” Motonaga demanded impatiently, rising slowly to his feet head weaving from left to right in a manner that might well have mesmerized another yet not one as possessed by hate as Satomine.

“I-I,” Satomine stuttered unable to complete the sentence.

Thankfully he was saved when the door he had closed earlier flew open that a servant might enter. The wind dead for so long was to for the first time in some time whip back to life.

Amazed by the return of his prior strength, the young bushi seized a-hold of Kazokiri, ere he threw himself against another of the walls. The shoji wall collapsed, it was far more fragile than what some might imagine. It was with considerably greater ease still that Satomine regained his feet and threw himself forward, past the gates and in the direction of the grate.

*****

“Tono! What has happened?” One of the guards called from the entrance of the temple.

“There is an assassin in our midst,” Motonaga informed the other man, with a dark look to the man now sprawled in the garden.

The flames though took up a life of their own, not unlike a gluttonous pig faced with a large buffet set before it by an eager farmer. Nervous of the flames, Motonaga was to when he saw the flames spread to the tatami mats all about him, thence to the walls took a step back distracted if momentarily so.

What happened next was something that angered the Emishi-King as many had begun to call him; when next he looked to the youth that had come upon him, he found him missing.

Other men might well have turned upon the servant and commanded him to see to hunting the man down, certainly this was one of the other guards commanded not that either of them truly knew what it was that they were looking for. They knew nothing of the assassin immediately, yet were soon to learn from a servant that the man had infiltrated pretending to be one of Hidemasu’s men and slipping into the temple in order to assassinate Motonaga.

What most angered Motonaga though was the loss of the head of Yoshinobu, hearing this just as he turned to one of the large crows nearby, one the size of a man’s arm he commanded it. “Find him! Kill him!”

The bird squawked, and it was away. Everyone stared at this act, none of them having previously taken stock of the bird. Each of them was disconcerted, and it was with more than a little trepidation that they wondered, what they ought to have asked themselves before when Tekka had first suggested resurrecting the twisted Motonaga. What had they done, in their greed and folly?