[74021076_p1.jpg]

Kotarou
I have to go...

(panting and stumbling)

Kage...to...

[74021076_p2.jpg]

(ringing shot)

[74021076_p3.jpg]

Kotarou
Am I dead?

[74021076_p4.jpg]

Kotarou
If I lose this body,
I will no longer be able to fulfill his desires.

[74021076_p5.jpg]

Kotarou
"If I lose this body?"
Is that really true?
Even when he switched bodies, he still knew who he was.
I've already lost.

(rustling)

[74021076_p6.jpg]

Kotarou
So long as I'm human.

(transformation)

Kotarou
Because I'm human.
In that case...

[74021076_p7.jpg]

Kotarou
(twitch)
(rises)
(lock clicks open)
(doors creak open)
I have to go.

[74021076_p8.jpg]

Kotarou
He's waiting.

[74021076_p10.jpg]

Takaya
Kotarou—
Oi, Kota...
...
Is someone there?
A kid? No, he's...?

Kid
Houjou Saburou. No, Uesugi Kagetora.

[74021076_p11.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
I am Ranzanmaru—
The votive sword passed down to the heads of the Fuuma from generation to generation.
Kotarou's spiritual power has allowed me to take my childhood form.
I wanted to take this chance to speak with you, Saburou-dono.

Takaya
—His votive sword?
What did you want to talk about?

Ranzanmaru
Well.
This a tale from the long-ago past of a certain man.

[74021076_p12.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
This man was born into the poor family of a small, poverty-stricken village in the mountains.
He had five older brothers.
Though he clung to his mother's breast, she had no milk to give him, and he wailed day and night.
On the seventh night
his father took the weak, starving babe and abandoned him in the forest.

[74021076_p13.jpg]

Vassal of Ujiyasu
What is it?

Ujiyasu
I just heard a baby's cry.

Vassal of Ujiyasu
Here in the forest?

Ujiyasu
Perhaps it's a ghost.
Look. It's an abandoned child.

Kotarou

(crying)

Ujiyasu
He's...still alive.
All right, we'll bring him back with us.

Vassal of Ujiyasu
Ujiyasu-sama?!

[74021076_p14.jpg]

Ujiyasu
I shall entrust him to Fuuma Satori.
If he is the child of a tengu, he will be naturally gifted in the ninja arts.
Perhaps in time he shall become my right arm.

Ranzanmaru
So the child was brought up in the village.
He absorbed the craft of the ninja with precipitous speed
as if he had always been born to be a ninja.
Yet.

Fuuma Satori
Hey!
Stop it!

[74021076_p15.jpg]

Fuuma Satori
What's going on?
You again?

Kotarou
He just suddenly started hitting me.

Boy
Because he...

Kotarou
I only said he was stupid.
Everybody dies.
You, your parents.
When your time is up.

Fuuma Satori
(softly)
You see, his father, during a recent infiltration—

Kotarou
(softly)
Ah, he just died, didn't he?

Fuuma Satori
(softly)
That's why, when you go and say something like that...

Kotarou
(softly)
I can't help it.

Fuuma Satori
(softly)
Look—

Kotarou
(softly)
I guess all my emotions were abandoned in the forest.
That's what makes me good.

Ranzanmaru
It was decided that the man would become head of the Fuuma.

[74021076_p16.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
His first task was an intelligence-gathering mission in a neighboring province.
There he slaughtered the inhabitants of a tiny poverty-stricken village—
—including

[74021076_p17.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
the family he had been born into.

Takaya
Does he know? What you've told me?

[74021076_p18.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
Who knows?

Takaya
Why did you tell me this?

Ranzanmaru
In that forest he overcame his own sentimentality for the first time:
all the weakness unworthy of a ninja.
That Kotarou was unparalleled among those who have inherited me through generations.

Takaya
—Are you turning your back on him, then?

Ranzanmaru
No, Saburou-dono.

[74021076_p19.jpg]

Ranzanmaru
He's finally become interesting.
See you around, son of Ujiyasu.

[74021076_p20.jpg]

(clang)

Takaya
Kotarou!
—Come, Kotarou.