Translation: all chapters
Chapter 9: The Vanished Girl
The horrible sight left Chiaki Shuuhei lost for words.
What had happened within the not-exactly-spacious grounds of Katou Shrine
? It looked as if it had been hit by both rainstorm and earthquake. The main shrine was half aslant, its roof torn off completely; downed trees lay on their sides, and the ground was pockmarked with huge depressions.
(This...)
A serious fight had taken place here—though he’d known that before he’d arrived. The psychic collision had been perceivable from some distance away. The more violent, the clearer it could be felt—and that had been true of this fight as well. He’d sensed almost immediately that Takaya was locked in a struggle with an opponent of no ordinary caliber.
While still at the school Chiaki had learned that Takaya had clashed with members of the executive office during the chaos surrounding care for the collapsed students. He’d been about to set up defensive measures against Mikuriya when the commotion had started. He’d ditched his class and come running, but he’d still been too late.
(Where’s Kagetora...?!)
Ambulances and police patrol cars arrived in a steady stream with sirens blaring. Chiaki pushed through curious onlookers to the scene. Injured tourists caught in the crossfire sat there in blank amazement. He didn’t spot Takaya among them.
“Kagetora... Kagetora, where are you?!”
“You’re not allowed in here!”
Fending off the police officer holding him back, Chiaki forced his way into the grounds. The back was crowded with people. They were about to carry the wounded out on stretchers—among whom was someone in a school uniform.
(Kagetora...!)
“You, step back!”
“You’re in the way; stay back!”
Though forcibly restrained by police, Chiaki was unwilling to back down; he yelled, “You’re the ones in my way! I’m family!”
As they wrestled, the stretcher bearing Takaya was loaded onto an ambulance. Two young persons unfamiliar to him climbed in with Takaya as if they were acting as his chaperon.
“Kagetora!”
The ambulance’s revived siren drowned out his cry as it crossed in front of Chiaki and down the road.
“It was them! They’re the ones who came out of the sky; they were flying!” a woman exclaimed behind him.
(What...?!) Chiaki turned in surprise.
She was one of the tourists who’d witnessed the scene. She’d been sitting beneath a tree and had received medical treatment for her injuries, but was shouting in her excitement.
“We saw them with our own eyes—they came out of the sky! It’s true! Those people...those people came down from the sky!”
(From the sky?) Chiaki rushed over to her. “What did you mean just now? When you said they came out of the sky—what did you mean by that?”
“We saw them—everybody saw them. Those people...flew over the castle and landed here!”
Chiaki looked to where she was pointing. She meant the young people who had surrounded Takaya earlier. They’d looked completely ordinary. They were looking his way.
(They flew through the air...?)
That’s crazy, he thought, but the other tourists were all excitedly talking about the same thing. The young people exchanged a few words and set off for the path on the opposite side, avoiding the crowd.
Chiaki saw among them someone wearing the uniform of a high school student. He recognized that face: it was Nezu Kouichi.
“You...!”
He tried to run after them, but a throng of police officers stamped in and blocked his way. In the meantime the youths disappeared into the crowd.
“Shit...!”
There was nothing he could do. And in any case he was worried about Takaya’s condition—given the serious injuries he had probably sustained.
Chiaki tsked and briskly walked away from Katou Shrine.
He passed an Old Castle High School student on his own way to the site of the commotion: Miike Tetsuya.
His fifth period had coincidentally been taught by Chiaki, but due to the uproar inside the school and the impossibility of calming the students down, the class had started twenty minutes late...and now what was happening?
Chiaki-sensei had abruptly cut the class short, ordered the students to study on their own, and rushed out looking quite strange.
(He’s acting oddly...)
And Ougi Takaya was missing. He’d heard a sound like a far-away earthquake. After that was when Chiaki-sensei...
Tetsuya had left the classroom alone, leaving his murmuring classmates behind—chasing after Chiaki. They’d arrived at Katou Shrine.
(What the hell...?)
What had happened here?
Tetsuya couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the tragic scene presented by the crumbling shrine. As if the typhoon of a few years ago had passed through again, tossing trees to the ground. There were hollowed-out depressions with their sediment displaced a small distance away, such that the ground bulged strangely. The underground destruction had been so intense that it had brought down the stone wall of the inner moat.
(What the hell happened here...?)
Something out of the ordinary had obviously occurred. But what? And what about earlier? The commotion in the broadcasting room; the odd damage to the asphalt in front of the school gates next to the sports grounds; the students who’d sudden fainted—
(There’s something weird going on.)
A shiver whose cause he could not name ran through his body.
(What the hell is going on...?)
Tetsuya had the feeling something very much out of the ordinary was happening around them, and he was seized with an overwhelming fear. It was as if the ghastly, disastrous spectacle before him was emblematic of that; he couldn’t help but shrink back.
And at his feet—he had stepped on some small rolling object. When he lifted his foot in surprise, he saw that a peculiar key ring had fallen to the sidewalk. He caught sight of the word ‘SEEVA’.
“? ...This...”
It looked familiar—hadn’t it been hanging from Inaba Akemi’s bag? Which was banned, but she’d probably loved it too much. She’d only taken it out when the patrollers weren’t looking, while hiding it inside the zipper otherwise. Tetsuya picked it up, frowning.
(But if it’s hers, what’s it doing here...?)
“You go to Old Castle High School, don’t you?”
His head jerked up at the sudden address, and saw someone who looked like the shrine’s head priest next to him.
He’d probably guessed from his uniform.
“A boy who looked like a student from your school was carried out earlier with serious injuries. I don’t know if they’re contacting the school. He was in a bad way—vomiting blood, which probably means a rupture in his internal organs.”
“A student from my school?” Tetsuya’s eyes widened. (Could he mean...)
Tetsuya had a sudden bad feeling. He was the first person that came to mind. It was completely baseless, but this horrible sight gave Tetsuya the feeling of an eerie coincidence, as if it were a sign.
“It couldn’t have been Ougi, could it?”
“Eh—...?”
“Was it Ougi Takaya?!”
Of course the priest didn’t know. But that was Tetsuya’s hunch. And he was convinced. His intuitions of this kind were never wrong.
(Don’t tell me this had something to do with Ougi too...?)
What had happened here?
What was going on?
Chiaki half-menaced a paramedic to learn Takaya’s destination and immediately headed for the hospital.
He raced down the corridor gasping for air and found waiting for him a young man and woman, neither of whom he recognized. The young man was dressed in a moss-green felt suit, the young woman a navy blue half-length coat and pink pants suit. —They were the ones who’d ridden in the ambulance with Takaya, he was sure of it.
Behind them the emergency room’s ‘In Operation’ red sign was lit.
“Kagetora...”
“... He’s in critical condition.”
It was the young man, who seemed the older of the two, who addressed him as if he were answering the question Chiaki wanted to ask. Chiaki looked at him, startled, and the young man informed him as a doctor might, “He’s undergoing an emergency operation in there to relieve his critical shortness of breath. I hope he’ll pull through.”
“...!”
Takaya’s condition was more serious than he’d thought. As the damage to the surrounding area had attested, the fight had been exceeding violent. His injuries had been serious enough to render him unconscious.
Chiaki bit his lip and scowled fiercely at the pair. “Who the hell are you?”
“...”
“Do you know who did this to him?”
“We’re only here to help him.”
“Help?”
“Yes. He was nearly killed. But with our assistance such a thing became impossible for the enemy, and he fled.”
“Who are you people?”
Based on their appearance, they were not possessor spirits; nor did they appear to be kanshousha. But their presence was distinctly different from that of ordinary people. They had to possess a not-inconsiderable amount of psychic power themselves to have been able to extract Takaya from that battle.
What if, Chiaki caught his breath.
(They came down from the sky? Could they be the ones who flew out of the sky...?!)
“Was it you?”
“...”
“That crowd earlier was saying something about people coming down out of the sky—was that you? What is going on?! You were the guys with Nezu earlier—are you his friends too?!”
“You are Ougi Takaya’s friend, correct?” the long-haired woman standing beside him interrupted Chiaki.
(They know his name?)
“Then you should hurry back. Someone who appears to be your enemy has kidnapped a girl from his school.”
“Kidnapped a girl...?!” Chiaki bellowed, violently seizing the woman’s collar. “Did you see it?! Who was it?!”
“Once his demand reaches you, you will know who he is. In any case, please return quickly. Should her safety not be your top priority?”
“Exactly. Even if you remain, you’re only waiting for the operation to finish.”
Chiaki glared nervously at the young man. Both of them were calm.
“You can only trust in the doctors. We will watch over him. Please go back.”
“...Who are you?” Chiaki demanded, low. “What the hell is your deal?”
Their attire, etc., were no different from that of ordinary people. But the serenity in their gaze was such that they lacked all human warmth. Chiaki shouted, finally losing patience at their non-answers: “Who the hell are you and where did you come from? Tell me right now!”
The young man silently narrowed his eyes a little, but finally opened his mouth. “—We come from the renowned country of the priestess of fire. We’re its people.”
“...!”
“Its descendants. We revere the people of Hyuuga. Is that enough for you?”
It rendered Chiaki speechless for a moment.
“...What did you say...?!” he demanded, thrusting aside the woman and taking hold of the young man’s collar. “What are you talking about?! Priestess of fire! You’re telling me you claim to be descendants of the Yamatai Kingdom?!”
“You asked who we are, and we answered.” The young man didn’t move. “This is the only answer we can give you right now that you can understand. But you can be certain of one thing: we are not his enemy.”
“...You tell me something that ridiculous and you expect me to trust you?”
“You have no choice, do you?” the young man pointed out flatly. “You should go. Otherwise there will be another victim. You can entrust him to us. So please leave.”
Knowing that he would receive no further answers, Chiaki tched and shoved him back roughly. ...If it was true a girl had been kidnapped, then what they’d said made sense.
(I don’t have a choice.) He retraced his steps. (Don’t you dare drop dead on me just yet, Kagetora!)
The pair beneath the red-lit sign watched Chiaki as he receded down the corridor.
“Chiaki-sensei!”
A tense group of teachers, Yamaguchi among them, was waiting for Chiaki back at the school. Classes were already over, and Yamaguchi and 2-B’s homeroom teacher Kurokawa were in the math department lounge.
“What’s going on, Yamaguchi-sensei?”
“This is terrible! Earlier the school received—we received this!”
He was holding a white envelope addressed to the homeroom teacher of junior class B. There was something heavy inside. He opened the envelope to find a lock of black hair and the bulky Old Castle High School student’s handbook. The student ID stuck to the back of it had a photograph showing a schoolgirl’s rather childish face.
(Inaba Akemi.)
Takaya’s classmate.
The hair had to be hers. The springy, lustrous black hair was bound together with a string of twisted paper into a narrow bundle. Chiaki hastily opened the enclosed note. The succinct message was written with a brush in an extremely archaic script. Chiaki’s expression grew rapidly grimmer as he read.
He immediately lifted his head to ask, “Where is Inaba? Did she come to school today?”
“She had a dentist’s appointment and left early. Before fifth period, I believe.”
“Has her family been contacted?”
“Well...” Kurokawa said, flustered and shaken, “She has not arrived at home, while the dentist’s office says she left right after her appointment.”
“...”
Chiaki clenched his fist around the bundle of hair.
“Your enemy has kidnapped a girl.”
(So they were telling the truth?) He ground his teeth and steeled himself before turning to Kurokawa and Yamaguchi, game face on. “And where is Miike Tetsuya right now?”
“He left before the start of sixth period. According to his classmates, he’s probably skipped class and gone home.”
“Where does he live? I’m going to see him. If he’s already gone home, contact his parents—”
“Miike lives alone.”
What? Chiaki stared. “He lives alone? A senior high school student?”
“Yes. His family home is in Aso, but due to various circumstances he rents an apartment in the city and lives by himself. ...Actually, I believe he was raised by relatives—he started staying with them when he was quite young.”
This was the first time he’d heard of it. Tetsuya had apparently been a problem child ever since he’d started school here, and had caused the teachers quite a bit of grief. Kurokawa had a complicated look on his face.
“His father died early, and after that his mother left, abandoning her children. He went to live with his grandfather’s younger brother. This grand-uncle’s house is in Aso Town—a place called Yakuin Field. I visited them once.”
“What about his younger sister?” Chiaki asked, leaning forward. “He has a younger sister named Hokage, doesn’t he? Where does she go to school? Does she live at the family home?”
Kurokawa rushed to flip through the student transcripts. “Let’s see... She goes to a private school in the city. Since Miike lives alone, I think his sister probably lives at the family home.”
“More importantly, Chiaki-sensei, what do you think of this letter? What is Asara? Is it a prank? Or...”
“We should contact the police, shouldn’t we?”
Neither Kurokawa nor Yamaguchi knew that Miike Tetsuya’s sister—Miike Hokage—had been missing for about a year.
And then there was this letter... No, this was no ordinary letter; it was a threat.
(Who did this?)
This opponent of Takaya’s. Who in the world had whupped Kagetora so badly?
One of Mikuriya’s allies? Or...
“...” Chiaki crushed the letter in his fist. He glared at it and pressed his lips together tightly. “Kurokawa-sensei, would you leave his matter to me?”
“To you, Chiaki-sensei?”
“I will return after meeting with Miike.”
The one who had fought with Takaya must have been an onshou. They had sent this threatening letter to Miike Tetsuya. What did it mean? What was the motive?
The one student in this school who was not haunted.
(Miike Tetsuya...)
Chiaki glared into midair with a terrifying expression in his eyes.
Two people watched Chiaki Shuuhei from one of the school’s rooms as he hurried out of the school gates not long after returning.
They were Mikuriya Juri and vice president Ozaki—aka Yokote no Gorou.
“As we expected, they’re on the move—those kanshousha.”
“Something appears to have happened with 2-B homeroom teacher Kurokawa. He’s all in a lather and has shut himself in the teacher’s lounge with Yamaguchi and the other teachers,” Yokote no Gorou recited flatly. “I heard something was happening, and have just sent my subordinates to sound things out.”
“Very well,” Mikuriya Juri answered, looking away from the window. “What of the earlier commotion? What have you learned?”
Gorou answered, “There are indications nenpa from Ougi Takaya and Kiyomasa collided with someone else’s at Katou Shrine.”
Of course Mikuriya had also sensed the fight between Takaya and Rairyuu. She had immediately sent Yokote no Gorou to investigate, but he had arrived after the participants had already dispersed.
“Ougi Takaya appears to have suffered serious injuries. Kiyomasa left with people who appeared to be his allies.”
“Allies? He had allies?”
“Aye. Based on what I heard from witnesses, they all flew down out of the sky.”
“From the sky?” Mikuriya’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What in the world? Are you saying flesh-and-blood human beings flew? That’s impossible. Wouldn’t that make them angels?”
“It was probably some kind of illusion. They all looked like ordinary people, apparently. ...I have sent our men to track down Kiyomasa; they will contact me as soon as they’ve located him.”
Mikuriya pressed a hand against her mouth and pondered. “’Tis a mystery...”
“...What is your command?”
“Very well. Concentrate on your search, and notify Dousetsu-dono as well. The one Kiyomasa fought was obviously not Ootomo. Who is in Kumamoto other than Ootomo? We must find out,” Mikuriya said, the coldness returning to her eyes. “All the demonic serpents will be hatched within the next few days. Let all those who bear a hatchling begin their work as holy crusaders of the Ootomo. We must hasten the excavation of the «Golden Serpent Head». Let divine punishment immediately fall on those who would interfere. ...That includes the kanshousha called Chiaki Shuuhei, if he should get in our way.”
Mikuriya stopped and looked at Yokote no Gorou. He bowed deeply.
“I hear and obey.”
Tetsuya’s apartment was in a residential district about five minutes from the bus stop. It was a small wooden construction easily over twenty years old. It was close to Kumamoto University, and had probably been built with the students in mind. The majority of the inhabitants were indeed students at the university; Tetsuya was the only high school student living there on his own.
Wending his way past several motorcycles parked in random places, Tetsuya ascended the stairs to see someone standing in front of his apartment. Maybe one of the college students who were his neighbors, he thought, but that turned out not to be the case.
His face stiffened in surprise. “You...!”
“You sure took your sweet time, problem child. Where have you been wandering about?”
Leaning against his door was Chiaki Shuuhei. Given that Tetsuya had just been thinking about him and Takaya, the sight of him just about made Tetsuya’s heart stop.
“Wh...what the hell?!” He just barely managed his usual hostile tone. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Surprise home visit,” Chiaki said, approaching with hands in his pockets. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”
“Show me...?”
“Yeah.” Chiaki took out the envelope and handed it to Tetsuya. Tetsuya suspiciously emptied it out.
“! ...Wh-what is...!”
“It appears your classmate Inaba Akemi has been kidnapped.”
“Inaba?!” Tetsuya looked up at Chiaki in shock. “Why?! Why would someone take Inaba?! Who?!”
“I don’t know—that’s why I’m here. Read that letter.”
Tetsuya did so.
“It’s addressed to you. It says if you want Inaba safely returned, to bring ‘Asara’.”
“Asara...”
“You’re the target of this threat. I think you know what this ‘Asara’ is, don’t you?”
Tetsuya’s expression was quite odd. His lips were pressed into a straight line, and his usually narrowed eyes were wide and frozen as he stared at the letter.
“’In three days, on the 22nd at midnight, bring ‘Asara’ to the designated location. If you do not comply, the hostage’s life cannot be guaranteed.’ That’s Inaba’s hair, isn’t it? Her family received a similar threat by telephone, and Inaba hasn’t returned home yet.”
“I can’t believe it...” Tetsuya recalled the key ring he had found at Katou Shrine. Was that where Akemi had been snatched away...? “What the hell...”
“Miike.”
“What the hell is this?! I don’t get it! Why Inaba...? Why would someone take her?!” Tetsuya glared at Chiaki. “Who the hell are you people?! Things have been weird since you guys came to the school! No, before that—when Mikuriya came. At the school. And at Katou Shrine, too!”
“...!”
“Don’t tell me,” Tetsuya keenly noted Chiaki’s momentary change in expression. “Don’t tell me it really was Ougi that was seriously injured and taken away. That had something to do with him, too?! What did he do?!”
“... Who knows?” Chiaki said, forcing calm over his face. “If he’s lucky he’ll probably live.”
“—You guys...”
“And what about you, Miike.” The sharp eyes he suddenly turned on Tetsuya frightened him. This was the first time he had seen Chiaki so stern. “What is this ‘Asara’ from the letter? You know, don’t you? You’re quite the puzzle. Starting with: why are you the only one not haunted?”
“Haunted...”
“At that school all the students without exception are haunted by a variety of spirits; you’re the only one they won’t approach. It’s not just that you don’t carry a magnet—it’s like they’re avoiding you. Why is that? Why is some onshou expressly blackmailing you?!”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about...!”
“Your sister is missing, isn’t she? Why?! What does that have to do with spirits avoiding you?!”
“I...I don’t...”
“What is ‘Asara’?! What do you know?! What is it?!”
"I don’t know! I don’t know where she is either!
What. Chiaki stared. “What do you know about Asara...?”
“I don’t know where she is! Nobody will tell me, so I don’t know!” Tetsuya shouted, holding his head, and Chiaki gazed at him motionlessly.
“Miike...”
The investigation at Katou Shrine appeared to have ended for today. Kumamoto Castle
was lit up as usual, while at its tower’s base the shrine’s corner alone remained dark and unilluminated.
A crowd of rubberneckers, attracted by all the excitement, had been here until just earlier, but now that it was dark the allure had gone out like a receding wave. The road in front of Katou Shrine was closed, and there were no cars. No Trespassing ropes stretched around the grounds.
Two men in coats stood in front of that rope.
“This is terrible...” Takahashi Jouun was stunned by the horrible sight. “Who in the world did such...”
The man in the cashmere coat standing next to him hadn’t said a word since earlier. —It was Kaizaki Makoto.
For a time Kaizaki gazed grimly at the destroyed shrine before finally ducking under the rope and stepping inside.
“Kaizaki-dono...!”
Kaizaki ignored him. Avoiding the depressions, he advanced deeper inside with careful steps. Jouun hesitated a little before following after him.
Kaizaki abruptly went down on one knee beside a fallen tree.
“Kaizaki-dono?”
Kaizaki quietly took off his leather gloves, reached toward the ground, and swept back and forth with his fingers.
Jouun didn’t know it, but this was where Takaya, having received a direct hit from Rairyuu’s will, had collapsed vomiting blood. Jouun didn’t see it in the dimness, but Kaizaki’s down-turned expression was full of mingled pain and fury.
“What amazing residual psychic energy,” Jouun muttered to himself, shuddering. “Given the amount of time that has passed, the fact that so much violent energy still remains is... No doubt two people of great power fought here.”
“...”
“Was it an Oda commander, since it was not Ootomo? But who in the world was his opponent...?”
“It was the Ikkou Sect,” Kaizaki answered, crouched.
“What?”
“The onshou who fought here was Shimozuma Rairyuu of the Ikkou Sect.”
“You...” Jouun was startled. “Shimozuma Rairyuu—the man called Kennyo’s trump card, the greatest of the Ikkou Sect? You know him?”
“Yes.” Kaizaki slowly stood. “I’m certain of it. It appears the Ikkou Sect’s kanshousha have started to move in Kumamoto.”
“Do you know his opponent, then? Someone from Oda?”
“His opponent was—...” His words cut off. He curled the fingers that had wiped away Takaya’s blood into a fist, so hard that his nails cut into the palms of his hand. The veins stood out a little from his temples as his fists shook.
“What is the cursed Ikkou Sect doing in Kumamoto? I will contact Julia-sama to probe deeper.”
“...The Ikkou Sect is allied with Akechi Mitsuhide. There are rumors Akechi has also recently entered into an alliance with Shimazu.”
“What?” Jouun lifted his head in surprise. “Truly?”
“Those reports are as of yet unconfirmed, but if they are true, we must take care. They’ll likely get wind of what’s happening at Old Castle High School.”
“We need to speed up the excavation of the «Golden Serpent Head», you’re saying.”
Kaizaki nodded and turned to him. His black eyes behind his glasses contained a dark glitter. “I have heard bring the Ikkou Sect under control is Uesugi’s most important challenge. Naoe-dono will seek to crush Rairyuu, I believe.”
“Then Uesugi intends to fight Rairyuu?! The man called the Ikkou Sect’s lethal weapon?!”
“Yes,” Kaizaki answered, quietly glaring into midair. “I will take Rairyuu down.”
“You—...”
“I will make you regret this, Shimozuma Rairyuu... I will make you understand the depths of your crime.”
Jouun gulped at the bloodlust on Kaizaki’s face. He was so quiet it was eerie—a quiet that seemed to reflect the depths of his inner murderous intent. A chill ran down Jouun’s spine.
Rage and loathing burned like a dark fire.
Kaizaki clenched his fists once more.
Chapter 10: Asara's Family
“What did you say?! Kagetora is—?!”
Kadowaki Ayako was using a public telephone at the entrance to a café, and her raised voice reverberated within. She had just learned of the battle at Katou Shrine after making contact with Chiaki Shuuhei.
“Oh no...and what’s his condition? But at least he’s going to live? ...You don’t know?! I can’t believe you! Why aren’t you with him?! What the hell are you doing?!” she bellowed; then, when she heard of Akemi’s kidnapping as well as the situation in Kumamoto, Ayako’s face grew rapidly grimmer and fiercer. “...All right. I’ll cut things short here and come to Kumamoto right away. I’ll stay with Kagetora... You concentrate on what you’re doing. No...it’s fine. I’ll leave the rest to Yagami.”
She exchanged a few more words with him and hung up.
Ayako’s face was filled with tension when she returned to the table. Yagami hurriedly inquired, “What has happened, Kakizaki-sama?”
“I need to leave for Kumamoto right away. Kagetora was taken to the hospital with serious injuries...”
“Kagetora-sama...! What happened?!”
“His opponent must’ve been really something if he was able to beat Kagetora up like that. Then again, his «power» has been unstable...”
“He was fighting?! With an onshou?!”
“He’s in critical condition... He’s unconscious. This is why I told them it was too dangerous for just the two of them to take on Kumamoto!” Ayako struck the table violently. The cups jumped and spilled their coffee, but Yagami didn’t react. He had paled at the seriousness of the situation. “But... but Kagetora had to go and...”
Ayako and Yagami were currently in Hakata in the middle of their investigation into the disappearances of the Himuka cultists. After visiting the sites of fires in Tokyo and Beppu, they had inspected a third site here, and had also inquired at the faith’s headquarters in the residential district of Sawara Ward.
The cultists called their headquarters ‘Oyashiro’ [the Shrine]. It was a snug-looking single-story wooden house with narrow cramped rooms, among which were worship halls called the ‘divine seat’ and ‘worship seat’, each six tatami (~107 sq ft) in size.
An elderly worshiper had acted as their guide. In the Himuka cult, the representative of the worshipers—the chief priest—was called the ‘Faith-Protector’. This elder took care of the Faith-Protector’s daily necessities and lived in the house. However...
“He passed away?” Ayako automatically repeated. “What happened?”
Ikeda Katsuya, Himuka cult Faith-Protector, had died a week before believers began to go missing.
Given that he’d been 80 with a failing heart and had been going back and forth between the hospital and his home (the same Oyashiro) for the past six months, his death had not been a suspicious one... However, the fact that their young believers started disappearing a week later bothered her. Were the two related?
She asked about the four missing persons.
“They were very earnest individuals,” The elder said, smiling. “Every month on the day of the ‘Feast’ they would come to help everyone out. Our believers are scattered far and wide, so they don’t always come, but the young ones were unusually enthusiastic and would participate every time. Especially Masamichi-kun...”
“Masamichi?” Ayako recalled that he was one of the missing. “Do you mean Enoki Masamichi-san? Who lives in Hakata?”
“Yes. Both his parents passed away in high school in an accident. He has experienced much hardship despite his youth. Perhaps it was due to that that he became much attached to the Faith-Protector, and I believe the Faith-Protector, too, thought of him like his own grandchild. He cherished him very much.”
“Excuse my rudeness, but what about Faith-Protector Ikeda’s family?”
“He had none,” The elder said, smiling. “He never married; to the Faith-Protector, the devotees were his family. He was a very gentle and kind person.”
Ayako and Yagami looked at each other. To be sure, the portrait of the deceased placed on the humble altar in the divine seat looked more like a ‘neighborhood uncle’ or ‘good-natured retiree’ than the founder of a religious cult.
“Do you know anything regarding the fires and disappearances? Any signs or omens?”
“Well,” the elder answered after having accommodatingly wracked his brain for a moment, “I believe they must have been summoned by the god of fire.”
“God of fire?” True, the Himuka cult worshiped fire, though it was not a large religion like Zoroastrianism. Large fires in residential areas was disallowed, but the cult kept an undying flame, a ‘sacred fire’ within a glass case on the altar, which was used for worship and during festivals.
Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, its enshrined deity, was said to be the god of the Aso volcano caldera.
(God of fire? ...Does he mean Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto?) was Ayako’s interpretation.
The elder didn’t look particularly grave when the disappearances were mentioned, and when told ‘they flew off into the sky’, said straightforwardly with no appearance of concern, “That’s possible if they were summoned by the god.”
Ayako deflated. Kotarou had called it secretive, and she’d had a murky image of some underground organization, but that wasn’t what she was hearing. It felt as if an old lecture and mutual assistance association had been labeled a religion. It was probably the feeling given off by the genial elder’s courtesy, but for now the Himuka cult itself seemed unproblematic.
“Given that, I think I can leave investigation of the Himuka cult to you,” Ayako told «Nokizaru head» Yagami as she frantically swung on her coat. “I’m heading to Kumamoto immediately. I can still make the limited express.”
“I’ll come with you!”
“No,” Ayako immediately snapped. “Possessor spirits are being hunted down right now in Kumamoto.”
“But Kotarou...!” Yagami objected angrily. “I mean...it’s just that Kotarou-dono’s gone to meet Kagetora-sama in Kumamoto, hasn’t he! What a Fuuma can do, but the «Nokizaru» of the Uesugi cannot, is...!”
“He—” Ayako’s lips twisted bitterly, “He’s special.”
“My abilities are not inferior to his. How long will Kakizaki-sama leave a Fuuma with Kagetora-sama like this?! Someone like that cannot protect him. In fact, he jeopardizes Kagetora-sama’s life...! We «Nokizaru» should be the ones to protect him!”
“We have no choice! You know as well as I do that to Kagetora, Kotarou is Naoe right now!” Ayako yelled back hysterically. “To Kagetora, he’s Naoe in every way! Even when he’s obviously not, despite trying to imitate him! Even when his face is different and his voice is different...Kagetora’s so convinced he even disregards the fact that Kotarou’s a possessor spirit!”
“Then hurry and return Kagetora-sama to normal!”
“We’ve tolerated it for two years precisely because we can’t.”
“...” Yagami closed his mouth in frustration.
Ayako knew that this newly-appointed head of the «Nokizaru» burned with a sense of rivalry towards Fuuma Kotarou. He felt a deep and abiding mortification at the fact that Kotarou, an outsider ninja, had been made his beloved and admired master’s right arm.
(Though I completely understand how he feels...)
Ayako knew very well how much Yagami revered Kagetora. It was an esteem that bordered on adoration. He worshiped him as he would a deity, and expressed not the slightest doubt or censure towards anything he said. Ayako herself trusted Kagetora to a high degree and so sympathized with Yagami, but even she was a step or three behind him in that regard.
Having to soothe his indignation over Kotarou was rather a task.
“In any case, continue your investigation of the Himuka cult for now. We don’t have any conclusive evidence of people flying through the air just yet.”
“Kakizaki-sama.”
“Just do it. It’s Kagetora’s command...too...so...?”
The odd wrench she felt at the end of that sentence came from having discovered a crucial keyword in what she’d just said. Ayako pressed a hand against her mouth.
Why hadn’t she noticed it immediately?
“What is it, Kakizaki-sama?”
“Flying through the air. I said ‘flying through the air’ just now. Flying through the air.”
“The witnesses all said something strange,” Chiaki had revealed during their call. At Katou Shrine people had descended out of the sky like angels to save Takaya.
(People descended out of the sky like winged angels.)
That sounded similar to the odd testimony from the eyewitnesses of the fire in Kurume. The missing Himuka cultist Saeki Ryouko was said to have flown into the sky—soundlessly flown as if she’d sprouted feathers.
(They came down out of the sky.)
“They’re attending Kagetora now at the hospital.”
Ayako’s breath hitched. Could the wingless angels who’d saved Takaya be—could they be...
“The Himuka cult’s...!”
“Huh?”
Ayako snatched up her purse and sprang up, kicking her chair over and thrusting people aside in her haste to get to the public telephone again. She slammed her telephone card in, begrudging even that delay, quickly punched in the number for the hospital Chiaki had given her, and snapped into the receiver, “Hi...hello?! A patient called Ougi Takaya was brought to your hospital...! I’m family. Yes, that’s right! That’s correct! What’s his condition...?! Were you able to save him?!”
At first startled by the explosion of action, Yagami quickly snapped out of it and rushed over to Ayako, whom he watched breathlessly for a reaction. She herself was awaiting a response, hand white-knuckled around the receiver.
(If there’s a connection...)
Her heart beat so hard it felt as if it might pound right out of her chest.
(If the Himuka cultists have a connection to the «Yami-Sengoku»...!)
Ayako finally received her answer after an interminable wait.
“He’s...dead...?” Yagami heard her repeat slowly.
He gasped.
Ayako muttered in blank disbelief, “That can’t be right...?”
It was very cold in Tetsuya’s six-tatami studio apartment.
There was a single free-standing fan heater in a corner of the room, but it wasn’t on. Maybe Tetsuya didn’t notice the cold.
He was seated, his face pale.
“Everything’s been crazy since that day,” he haltingly began telling Chiaki. “Everyone went crazy after the bonfire festival.”
Five years ago, in the early autumn when Tetsuya had just turned twelve...
His younger sister had been chosen as the bonfire maiden.
“Bonfire maiden?”
“Yeah,” Tetsuya confirmed in a gloomy voice. “My house is at a place called Yakuin Field in Aso Town, and at the shrine of our guardian deity, Frost Shrine [Shimo Shrine], there’s a bonfire festival every year that’s been passed down from ancient times. It lasts from August to October. For those two months every year, a girl is chosen to be shut up in Bonfire Hall [Hitaki Shrine] to tend the fire for the god.”
“And that’s the bonfire maiden.”
Tetsuya nodded. “The ritual bonfire keeps the god of Frost Shrine warm so he doesn’t get cold and bring an early frost.”
The girl was also called the little bonfire girl. She had to be younger than fifteen, and no one else was allowed to enter Bonfire Hall. The attendants who looked after her must be men, or women middle-aged or older who shared blood ties with her. The body of the deity was transferred from the main shrine and installed on bamboo stretching across the ceiling; the maiden tended to the bonfire in the pit beneath it. If an early frost descended during these two months of ritual, it was blamed on the maiden’s bonfire abating.
“But...when Hokage tended the fire, things got weird,” Tetsuya told Chiaki as he recalled those events.
That year, when Tetsuya’s sister Hokage had been bonfire maiden...
Odd happenings had followed one after another in Bonfire Hall.
The bonfire had assumed the shape of a demon’s face and spoken to Hokage, for example. It had raced across the sky in the shape of a dragon. Something that looked like golden sand had fallen into the hall. They’d heard a voice in the middle of the night like a man singing. —Tetsuya’s granduncle had seen things. So had his grandmother. Both the festival steward and the priest had heard. In any case, extraordinary and mysterious phenomenon had followed in succession.
“Something terrible is going to happening during the night-crossing this year, I’m sure of it.”
Just as the rumors circulating among the adults had predicted, something completely unbelievable had happened on the last day, during the night-crossing which had brought the festival to an end.
“A serpent... of fire...”
Chiaki’s eyes grew wide at Tetsuya’s tale. Tetsuya nodded.
At the finish of the night-crossing festival, while Hokage had been walking across the fire, the flames had violently flared, turned into a great serpent, and soared into the sky.
“You probably think I’m just making it up,” Tetsuya groaned, eyebrows drawn. “But that was when it all started. After seeing that serpent, my relatives’ attitudes towards Hokage changed drastically.”
“Changed?”
“Yeah. They started calling her ‘Hokage-sama.’ As if she were a princess or goddess. They’re all ridiculously polite towards her, mincing, like they’re touching a boil: ‘Hokage-sama’, ‘Hokage-sama.’ Even the people who talked shit about us before suddenly completely changed their attitudes—an onlooker would’ve thought it uncanny.”
Soon after, Hokage had been taken from their granduncle’s home, a branch family of the Miike, and received into the head house: the home of Tetsuya’s uncle Miike Haruya.
“...And your sister went missing about a year ago?”
“The head house did something, obviously,” Tetsuya stated flatly. “My family’s really weird, Sensei! My relatives are always whispering together like they’re discussing a secret! I’m sure they must’ve hidden Hokage away!”
“What do you mean? From whom? Why would she have to be hidden?”
“I don’t know. But it’s probably because,” he clenched his fists, “Hokage is ‘Asara’.”
“What?”
“Hokage is special—that’s what Grandma said. ‘Miike has produced Asara-hime.’ ‘Hokage is Asara-hime.’”
“You mean...! Then ‘Asara!’ refers to your sister! This letter is talking about your sister!”
“I can’t think of any other explanation.” Tetsuya’s fists shook. “It’s said Miike’s lineage descends from ‘Asara’s bloodline’...”
“‘Asara’s bloodline’...”
“I don’t really know what it means, but...that’s what Grandma said. Asara must be born for Onpachi-sama’s sake. The bloodline must never die out. The branch family Celebrants must serve the head family all their lives, and may someday need to protect them with their lives...!”
Tetsuya didn’t seem to comprehend the words that came tumbling out of his mouth.
Chiaki was silent. Things had taken a turn for the strange. The key to the mystery was hidden within the Miike family in Aso.
“All right, Miike. So this letter is saying that Inaba’s life will be exchanged for your sister’s. Any idea who the culprit is?”
“How would I know?”
“So you don’t know why, but if your head house did hide Hokage away, then they should know where she is now.”
Tetsuya’s head came up in surprise. “Are you going, then, Sensei?”
“A person’s life is at stake. I gotta go.” Chiaki extracted his car keys from his back pocket and glared outside. “I can’t let one of my precious students die without trying to do anything about it.”
“Sensei...”
“Leave it to me, Miike. I’ll put these lame losers who use kidnapping as a ploy out of business.”
But his lips were stiff around the words. From the look of it, his opponents weren’t your run-of-the-mill louts, but enemies formidable enough to have beaten Takaya.
(The Ootomo?)
If so, had Mikuriya taken part? Tachibana Dousetsu, Takahashi Jouun...the Ootomo had some famous commanders. Had Kaizaki revealed to them that Takaya was Uesugi Kagetora? Or...
(Oda? ...Was it Katou Kiyomasa?)
Chiaki didn’t yet know Nezu’s true identity. But even aside from these there were many onshou who wanted Kagetora disappeared.
And what was this Miike family that had caught the eye of the onshou?
“...I have no time. The life of the hostage takes priority. Show me the way to Aso, Miike.”
Tetsuya nodded, looking tense. They hurried out. It had already grown completely dark.
She hopped on the limited express at Hakata. It was already past 7 p.m. by the time she arrived in Kumamoto, after about an hour and thirty minutes on the train. Ayako found a taxi in front of the station and immediately headed for the hospital.
(It can’t be true...there’s no way it can be true...)
She couldn’t know for sure unless she saw him with her own eyes, Ayako told herself. She didn’t believe what the nurse had told her at all.
“I’m so sorry, but Ougi-san passed away a short while ago.”
(There must be some mistake...)
The nurse’s compassionate voice circled in her mind. She’d even told Ayako the time of death. But Ayako shook her head with all her might.
(I’m sure there was a mistake...!)
She wanted there to have been a mistake. For a case of mistaken identity.
She ran into the night entrance of the half-lit building. A nurse was on duty at the reception desk.
“Excuse me, there was a patient who was brought in today—Ougi Takaya. I’m his family...!”
“Ougi-san...oh, yes. You’re the one who called earlier?” It appeared to be the same nurse she’d spoken to on the phone earlier. “We tried everything; I’m very sorry...”
“Where is he?! Please take me to him, where is Ougi Takaya right now?!”
“The body?”
No! A desperate Ayako choked back the word. “You must have the wrong person! Are you sure it was Ougi Takaya? Are you certain it was him?!”
“There was no mistake. He was matched with the photo on his student handbook. It was him.”
“It can’t be!” Ayako screamed. “Where is he? Take me to him right now! I won’t believe it until I’ve seen him with my own eyes!”
“But...” the nurse was thrown into confusion, “his family has already collected his body to take it home.”
“What?!” Ayako’s face twisted. “That’s not possible. His family is in Matsumoto.”
“But the people who were with him claimed to be family. They’ve already gone through all the formalities; they left about an hour ago...”
“The people who were with him?”
Did she mean the man and woman Chiaki had spoke of?
“Yes. They stayed the entire time.”
Ayako was stunned. Her face twisted more and more, and for a moment she couldn’t get any words out.
(What the hell is going on?)
Her distracted mind was discombobulated even further, but she finally managed to rouse herself.
“You must have their contact address, then. Give it to me. I need their names and place of resi...” she was saying, when—
She looked sharply behind her at the sound of the automatic doors opening.
A tall man wearing glasses and a black coat rushed in. She knew him. Ayako gasped at this completely unlooked-for encounter.
“...Kaiza...ki...!”
For it was Kaizaki Makoto. He seemed in a great hurry, his hair most uncommonly disheveled and his breath coming out in panting gasps. This was the first time she’d seen him since E Island, though she’d heard from Takaya that he appeared to be allied with the Ootomo. Kaizaki stopped dead at the sight of her.
Something audibly snapped inside her.
“Was it...you guys...?” She demanded, lips twisting. “Was it? Did you attack Kagetora?” Without another word Ayako rushed up to the wide-eyed Kaizaki and slapped him in the face, hard. The force sent his glasses flying to the floor. Without a pause she seized Kaizaki’s collar, screaming, “It was you guys, wasn’t it, Satomi?! You allied with Ootomo and sent some weirdos after him!”
“...!”
“Murderer! Where did you take him?! Give him back—! You’re a dead man; I’m going to kill you all!”
“No, calm down...!”
“I’ll kill you! All of you!”
“I’m telling you to calm down!” He yelled back, seizing both of her shoulders and pressing down hard for a moment.
“Kaizaki...!”
“You can’t investigate when you’re this distraught! He’s not dead, just unconscious; I know he’s alive!”
(Wh...)
Ayako was befuddled. For a moment she doubted her ears. Kaizaki told her with a frightening earnestness in his eyes, “Reach out to him with your telepathy; if he is alive, he will respond. Sharpen your senses so you’ll be able to catch any response, no matter how faint. I know you’ll be able to hear it.”
“... Me...”
“The Ikkou Sect did this to him. Shimozuma Rairyuu is alive.”
“Rairyuu...you’re telling me Shimozuma Rairyuu...!”
“Yes. He didn’t die at Itsuku Island, and he’s here right now in Kumamoto. We’re in the process of locating him. Leave that to the Ootomo; your first priority is to locate Takaya-san.”
“...Right...”
“He is not dead. There isn’t even the possibility of it.”
Ayako was dumbfounded.
In her heart she unwittingly called a name: (...Naoe...?)
“All right?” he called her attention back. The man produced a business card from his pocket, quickly wrote his contact address on its back, and pressed it into Ayako’s hand. “If anything happens, contact me. I can be of assistance.”
Then he turned, the hem of his coat fluttering, and immediately retraced his steps back out into the cold wind. Ayako snapped to her senses, yelling, “Wait, Kaizaki!”
She chased him through the night entrance toward the parking lot.
And stopped abruptly.
(What...)
Kaizaki stood stock still. Beyond him were three men in a pool of light, obstructing his path. Ayako’s eyes widened at the strangeness of the atmosphere between them.
(That’s...)
“You’re Kaizaki, I believe. A descendant of the Satomi now in exile with Ootomo,” said a young man of average height, who appeared to be the leader. None of them were familiar. Kaizaki went on the defensive. All three men were carrying what looked like Japanese swords.
“What is it to you?”
“We heard that those busybodies the Ootomo have encroached into Kumamoto, which is ours. We are the vanguard sent to make a clean sweep.” From his large black eyes, thick eyebrows, and bold facial features, he was indeed a burly, strapping young Kyuushuu lad. He added in a deep dauntless voice: “Cursed Ootomo, do not flatter yourself just because you’ve taken Saga. Kumamoto will never belong to you. Leave if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“What?”
They were all kanshousha. And they were powerful.
Just as Kaizaki came to that conclusion, the men unsheathed their swords. The pale-glinting blades, imbued with their will, glowed with a mysterious and ominous light. In the blink of an eye their blue edges began to glitter with a strong energy.
“All those who stand in our way will do us a favor by disappearing, Satomi!”
Letting out yells suffused with fighting spirit, the young men raised their swords high. “Cheeestoo—!”
They kicked off the ground and rushed at him with their swords held overhead. The speed of their downward slashes proved these were no average swordsmen.
“!”
Kaizaki just barely managed to intercept with a «goshinha». Sharp plasma scattered, and he was sent flying. Such spirit...!
(The Jigen style!) No, it was similar but different. This was... (The Taisha style!)
There was no room for thought, for now the remaining two were charging at him. A diagonal slash from the shoulder too quick for the eye to catch. Kaizaki desperately dodged and knocked his attackers away with his will, but they obstinately picked themselves back up and came at him again. They screamed their war-cries, their swords slashing down with lightning speed.
The Taisha style was a school of swordsmanship used by all the warriors of Kyuushuu during the closing years of the Sengoku. Death in one blow was its bloody creed, with the swordsman putting his whole power into a single diagonal downward stroke.
“CHESTOOO—!”
Kaizaki just managed to erect a «goshinha». But the single powerful stroke broke through even that.
“!”
He was hurled down to the asphalt. These three were strong. But that wasn’t all—there was something odd going on with Kaizaki himself.
“Feh...!”
Was he out of form? Was stress disrupting his «power»? Kaizaki narrowly managed to thrust away the re-surging enemy with «nenpa». But in the time he took to get to his feet they were on the attack again. As he evaded them, Kaizaki yelled, “Who the hell are you?!”
As they lunged with their swords with absurd speed: “My name is Iehisa, son of Shimazu Takahisa! Withstand the sword of a warrior of Satsuma if you can!”
The name left both Kaizaki and Ayako amazed. He was one of the four Shimazu brothers, heroes of Shimazu who had conquered the whole of Kyuushuu with the force of a tsunami, shoved aside the brave old generals of Kyuushuu and driven Ryuuzouji and Ootomo to the edge of destruction.
(Shimazu in Kumamoto...!)
“Guh!”
Iehisa’s blow shattered Kaizaki’s «goshinha» and knocked him unconscious. Ayako involuntarily cried out, “Kaizaki!”
“Finish him!”
Ayako’s «nenpa» managed to intercept Iehisa by a hair’s breath as he raised his sword overhead. The sword flew out of his hands, and Iehisa and his followers recoiled from the unexpected attack.
“Who’s there!”
“Someone who won’t allow you to do as you please!”
(A newcomer!)
A surprised Iehisa signaled his subordinates to withdraw. Ayako rushed over to Kaizaki. He was unconscious from Iehisa’s blow.
“Wait, Iehisa!”
The Shimazu had already taken to their heels. Ayako tsked and lifted Kaizaki in her arms.
“Get ahold of yourself, Kaizaki! Kaizaki!”
There was no reaction. Hospital personnel hurried over to them, alerted by the noise. Ayako bit her lip and glared into the darkness.
(They’re...!)
“I’m back! Agh, this is heavy!”
Koganezawa Kyouko opened the door and set her supermarket bags on the floor, catching her breath.
She had been good today and stopped to do the shopping on the way home from school. It had been hard work. In the bags were heaps of vegetables and meats.
“Welcome home, Kyouko. You’re back late today.”
“Yeah,” Kyouko answered as her aproned mother peered at her from the kitchen.
“I bought the ingredients for tomorrow’s bento.”
“Oh my.” Her mother’s eyes grew round at the overflowing shopping bags. “This is a great help. I don’t remember when you last cooked it yourself. Is this for the rugby club?”
“As if. This is for Chiaki-sensei. There’s gonna be a practice game tomorrow afternoon, and I’m gonna bring him the awesomest homemade bento ever—”
“Hmm...” her mother nodded. But immediately thereafter she looked as if she’d just recalled something. “That’s right. I had a call from Akemi-chan’s mother earlier. Kyouko, were you with Akemi-chan earlier?”
“Akemi? No, I don’t know where she is. I think she left school early today to go to a dentist appointment?”
“But she hasn’t made it home yet.”
“Maybe she went shopping?”
“Maybe that’s it...” her mother placed her hand against her cheek. Kyouko handed her the shopping bags.
“Put these in the fridge. Geez, my shoulders are sore again. We’re not eating yet, right? I’m gonna go take a bath.”
She went up to the second floor.
To Kyouko, bathing was the most important part of the day. That she fussed over her appearance much more than others was a part of it, but she was also trying to cure the chronic stiffness in her shoulders. As she submerged herself in the lukewarm water, Kyouko massaged them.
“It hasn’t gotten better at all...”
Chronic though it might be, it’d gotten worse these past few months, and hadn’t healed no matter how much her mother helped massage them. So much so that there were days when she couldn’t lift her arms. She’d heard that bathing was good for blood circulation, and did so assiduously, but there’d been no improvement. People had laughingly called her an old woman, and she’d retorted that nowadays the young toiled away more than the elderly.
Still, the pain wasn’t getting better at all.
“Maybe I should quit the manager job?”
Kyouko, of course, had no way of knowing that her stiff shoulders was caused by being haunted by multiple spirits.
(Still...) She thought over her day. (What does it mean that Chiaki-sensei and the transfer student know each other?)
What Tetsuya had said had gotten stuck in her head. Were they related or something? Speaking of which, she’d heard a strange rumor from the girls in her class. They’d seen Chiaki-sensei entering the back door of the hotel near the castle after school. The girls tailing him had also seen Chiaki collect a key at the front desk. There had been excited speculation that he’d been there for a secret tryst, but Kyouko didn’t believe that for a moment.
(What was it Akemi said...?) Something about Ougi Takaya. That he lived in a hotel or something. (It couldn’t be the same hotel, could it?)
Suspicion welled up, and Kyouko’s brows drew in. Come to think of it, it was pretty strange that a new teacher would take up his post on the same day a new transfer student arrived. And it’d been Ougi Takaya who’d caused an uproar with the executive office, too. Apparently he’d been hanging out with Nezu Kouichi...
(Fishy...) What was the connection? She pursed her lips. (Alrighty, let’s see if I can pester a satisfactory answer out of Chiaki-sensei tomorrow.) she thought, clenching her fist in the bathtub—when—
“Huh?”
There came a low grumble from the pit of her stomach.
Maybe she’d exerted herself too much. “Oh boy. Now my stomach’s growling.” She pictured the dinner spread.
Guruguru...
Again the strange sound. It wasn’t just a rumble—it sounded like a low moan.
(Wh... Huh...?)
Something was not right.
At that moment, something moved in that same spot at the pit of her stomach. There was the sound of a slow creak and rip from the center of her body—and in her stomach a thick lump formed a circular shape.
“Yeek...!”
The wriggling grew more and more distinct, and she felt as if a live fish were writhing in her abdomen. It became more and more violent until the skin of her chest twitched and heaved.
“Agh...what...!”
Her skin bulged into welts. There were lumps of something living squirming right and left beneath her epidermis, crawling up to her head.
“Yeeek—!” She sprang up out of the bathtub. “Noooo! What is this?!”
Something was inside her...!
The screams gushed out of her.
“Noooo—!”
“What’s wrong, Kyouko?”
The bathroom door was flung open, and her mother burst in. Kyouko had collapsed face-down on the wet tiles.
“Kyouko...!”
As she stepped toward her, a black shadow flashed past. Her mother lifted her head in surprise to see many human faces emerging.
“Yeek...!”
They were the ghosts haunting Kyouko—four or five of them. They stared at her with wan faces full of hatred.
“Kyo...Kyouko? Kyoukooo!”
Her frightened mother attempted to raise Kyouko in her arms. Kyouko’s body suddenly jumped and then continued to do so several more times. Then it finally began to slowly rise on its own.
“K-Kyouko?”
Kyouko’s arm slowly shook off her mother’s hand, placed both hands on the tiles, and steadily raised her upper body. She lifted her head.
“...!”
Her mother’s eyes went wide. A glassy look fixed on her from behind wet bedraggled hair.
Out of snakelike eyes.
Finally her red lips curved slightly into a smile.
Chapter 11: Protectors of the Fire Mountain
It took around an hour to reach Aso from the city by car. Miike Tetsuya was in the passenger seat as Chiaki Shuuhei raced down National Highway 57 at full speed toward Aso Town and Tetsuya’s family home.
Aso’s topography was very interesting. Within an enormous caldera with an outer rim 128 kilometers (~80 miles) in circumference lay seven towns and villages. At almost the center of this basin-shaped formation towered the central volcanic cones, including the famous Five Peaks of Aso [Aso Gogaku]. Many people seemed to assume that Mt. Aso referred to this famed mountain, but in fact it referred to the entire entity, including the outer rim. In ancient times Mt. Aso had been a cluster of active volcanoes which collapsed into the enormous Aso caldera after a massive eruption emptied 40 billion metric tons of ejecta from underground.
There was only a single break in the rim surrounding the caldera: the Tateno Crater Shoals. Both National Highway 57 and JR from Kumamoto entered Aso through this valley.
Tetsuya stayed silent the entire ride. The news program presenter on the radio was reporting on the earlier incident at Katou Shrine, and though Chiaki was worried for Takaya, he concentrated as much as he could on the matter at hand and stomped hard on the accelerator.
Just past Aso Station on the Houhi Main Line was an intersection; he turned left to enter a narrow lane to Yakuin Field , the village where Tetsuya’s family home was located. After wending through several of these narrow paths through rice paddies they reached the house of Tetsuya’s granduncle, Miike Tatsuya.
A dog started barking furiously as he shoved the car into a cramped nearby garden. The house was already dark, its storm shutters shut, but the sound drew someone to the door.
“What’s wrong, Tetsuya!” Tetsuya’s granduncle and grandaunt were both shocked by his abrupt return, given that in general Tetsuya never even called unless necessary. “Has something happened? You didn’t even let us know you were coming!”
Tetsuya climbed sullenly out of the car.
“And who is that?”
“A teacher from my school,” Tetsuya answered curtly. His granduncle probably thought Tetsuya was in trouble at school again. He bowed his head toward Chiaki.
“Y-you’re his teacher, then? You’ve come a long way this evening. Please come in. Tetsuya! What have you done this time?!”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Granduncle. I didn’t do anything. Anyway,” Tetsuya’s face darkened, “There’s something I gotta know.”
“Know? What?”
“Where is Hokage?” Both Chiaki and Tetsuya saw his granduncle’s face immediately change. “You know, don’t you? Where Hokage is right now? If you know, tell me. I gotta know where she is!”
“Tetsuya...!”
“A person’s life is at stake! Tell me, Granduncle! Where is Hokage?!”
“A person’s life?”
Tetsuya’s granduncle looked uneasily at Chiaki, who nodded.
“It’s true. There’s no time to lose. If you know Hokage-san’s whereabouts, please tell us.”
“...That’s...” Tetsuya’s granduncle shook his head, perplexed. “something I have no knowledge of.”
“What?”
“We don’t know anything. That’s the truth. But even if we did, we Celebrants would not be able to tell you.”
Tetsuya glared like a dog about to pick a fight. “Then the head house people know, don’t they?”
“Tetsuya!”
“Fine! I’ll just ask my uncle directly! Come on, Sensei, let’s go!”
“Look here, Tetsuya!”
Ignoring his granduncle’s attempts to call him back, Tetsuya pulled Chiaki away by the arm and got into the car. They drove off with his granduncle still shouting behind them. ...Tetsuya gnawed a nail in annoyance in the passenger seat.
“Now you know, Sensei. That’s how it is. It’s like everyone from the branch family are servants of the head house. And all the secrecy—it’s gross.”
“What are the Celebrants?”
“It refers to my entire family. That’s what they call all of us Miike. It’s written with the characters for ‘celebrate’ and ‘child’.”
“...”
The Miike Celebrants have to devote their entire lives to the head house. The head house people are our lords. If they say, ‘Do not speak of it,’ then we’re supposed to keep quiet even if it means biting our tongues off. That’s the kind of family we are."
(It certainly is quite strange.)
The idea of head house and branch families remained firmly rooted in some places, but it seemed especially deep-seated in the Miike family. That, and this Asara made the family itself quite mystifying.
Moonlight clearly illuminated the northern outer rim of the crater. They took the road cutting straight through the center of the rice paddies. Immediately past a right turn was a house surrounded by a long hedge: the Miike head house.
In the spacious courtyard was a storehouse as well as a detached building. The main building had the splendor befitting a head house.
They got out of the car, looking tense.
They were led inside and told to wait.
The house was in the traditional farmhouse style. The entrance led into an earthen floor interior. There were no corridors; the rooms were not partitioned by sliding screens, but doors of yellowish-brown wood. One could feel its age from the slightly blackened pillars. There were perhaps ten rooms or so. Such an old building must have belonged to the village headman class in former times.
The room into which Chiaki and Tetsuya were shown was around twenty tatami (~356 sq ft) in size. It was heated only by an oil stove, and was quite cold when they entered.
Tetsuya seemed strained next to Chiaki. His uncle, Miike Haruya, was the head of the head house. Ordinarily one would have wondered why he was so anxious about seeing his own uncle, but...
“Damn...it...”
Tetsuya was seated in formal pose, and his fists quivered on his knees. Nonetheless his eyes had a fiery glitter to them.
(Is he such a scary dude?)
The door clattered open, and a man dressed in Japanese clothes entered.
Tetsuya’s back immediately straightened.
Miike Haruya was in his mid-forties. His presence felt exactly opposite of what Chiaki had imagined, and he was a bit taken aback. Perhaps because he routinely wore kimonos, the navy-blue one he had on looked stylishly natural on him, not at all disheveled, the collar just so. Though he was the head of a farming family, he didn’t seem the slightest bit rustic. If anything, he looked more the intellectual type, endowed with a special kind of dignity, very much the head of an old family.
(This man...) He’s the formidable type, Chiaki groaned internally.
“You look well, Tetsuya,” Haruya said. With that defiant glitter still in his eyes, Tetsuya carefully bowed in strict accordance with etiquette.
“...It’s been a while, Uncle.”
“You didn’t visit for the New Year, and I hear you have not kept up with your kagura practice. There is value in such training. To learn kagura is one of the duties of a Celebrant. You will be dancing this year.”
“...”
Though his bearing was meek, his eyes were full of defiance.
“You are?”
“I am a teacher at Old Castle High School,” Chiaki introduced himself. “My name is Chiaki Shuuhei.”
“Ah, a teacher?”
“My apologies for this sudden nighttime visit. This is a matter of urgency.”
“It’s about Hokage, Spirit-Protector,” Tetsuya addressed his uncle, cutting straight to the chase. “Please tell us where to find her! We need to know where she is!”
Haruya’s eyebrows twitched. “What is the meaning of this?”
Chiaki passed Haruya the letter and lock of hair. Haruya opened the folded paper and ran his eyes over the lines written there. Tetsuya gazed intently at his uncle’s face.
“As you can see, someone sent Tetsuya-kun this letter.”
“...”
“The kidnap victim, Inaba Akemi, is his classmate. She never returned home, and we currently have no news of her. There are witnesses who saw her being abducted from Katou Shrine.”
“...”
“I found this too, in front of the shrine. Look!” Tetsuya produced the keychain he had picked up. “This is Inaba’s. She really was kidnapped! If we don’t bring Hokage, something bad’s going to happen to Inaba!”
His uncle was unperturbed. With a sober gaze he lifted his eyes from the letter. “Have you contacted the police?”
“No, not yet.”
“I see.” Haruya answered concisely, “Compliance with these demands is not possible.”
Tetsuya’s eyes bulged. Haruya handed back the letter impassively.
“I don’t know who committed this mischief, but no attention need be given to such antics.”
“This is not a prank!” Tetsuya’s voice was raised. “Inaba really was kidnapped! They’ll probably kill her! If I don’t bring Hokage—”
“How do you know?”
“They know about Asara—which is something only us Miike should know about! The people who kidnapped Inaba must be the same people who destroyed Katou Shrine! Right, Sensei? And they did for Ougi, too!”
Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise at Tetsuya’s intuition. “Miike...”
“I don’t know who they are, but this is no prank. If I don’t bring Hokage, they really will kill Inaba! She’s going to die, Uncle!”
“... In that case, there is all the more reason not to comply.”
“!”
Tetsuya was speechless. Haruya’s eyes fell to half-mast, and his tone became very stern. “If this is true, then it is all the more imperative that Hokage’s location not be revealed. Would you put Asara in danger by responding to this threat? We must not comply.”
“Inaba is Hokage’s friend, too! Are you saying we’re just going to let her die?!”
“This has nothing to do with our family.”
Tetsuya was left utterly without recourse by the coldness of Haruya’s words. He clenched his teeth hard enough to break them and glared piercingly at his uncle. His voice was like a moan: “Is Onpachi-sama more important than actual living human beings?”
“Tetsuya.”
“What the hell is wrong with this family?! Just what the hell is Hokage?! Why does she have to be hidden away?!”
“...”
“Are you planning to marry Hokage to Onpachi-sama? It’s not like we’re living in an old folk tale. It’s completely stupid to take superstitions as fact and live in fear of them in this day and age! You were once a card-carrying cosmopolitan intellectual yourself!”
Chiaki quietly waited to see what Haruya would do. Yet Haruya didn’t even quiver at Tetsuya’s abuse. Chiaki suddenly asked, “Who are you hiding Hokage-san from?”
“...”
“Perhaps you anticipated something like this would happen?”
Haruya’s eyes lifted in surprise.
“! What...?!” Tetsuya pressed his uncle, stunned, “Is that true, Uncle? You knew that someone would target Hokage...”
“This has nothing to do with either of you.”
“Of course it does!” Tetsuya bellowed, striking the tatami mat, “Hokage is my sister! How can you say she has nothing to do with me?! Who’s targeting her, and why?! What do they plan to do with her?! What the hell is going on with this family?!”
Tetsuya was so agitated that his voice had become choked with tears, and Chiaki patted his shoulder to calm him.
Miike’s head, however, was calm. He sat with his hands tucked into his sleeves, saying nothing.
“Miike-san.”
“...I cannot tell you Hokage’s location. This is the answer of the Spirit-Protector. Go home.”
Tetsuya stared at his uncle in astonishment.
Haruya bowed toward Chiaki and stood. Without another word to the dazed and befuddled Tetsuya, he left the room.
“Uncle...”
Chiaki immediately sprang up, hot on Haruya’s heels.
“Please leave.” Haruya was just as cold toward Chiaki. “There is nothing more to discuss.”
“What is Asara-hime?”
“...”
“I can do nothing if I don’t understand. What is Onpachi-sama? Do they have anything to do with the bonfire ritual?”
“I see no need to explain to you.”
“Inaba is my student. I can’t simply stand by and do nothing. If you absolutely refuse to tell us Hokage-san’s whereabouts...”
“It has nothing to do with my family.”
“You can keep your silence, but they may resort to even dirtier measures.”
Haruya’s shoulders jolted—the first time he had displayed such a reaction. Haruya looked at them over his shoulder. “Do you know who made these threats?” he asked.
Chiaki nodded. “Probably someone out of the police’s reach. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Who are you?”
“Why don’t we make a deal, Miike-san? You have a secret you must protect even if it means letting someone die. But the people who wrote this letter will stop at nothing to achieve their ends, no matter how vicious their means. I want to help you, Miike-san. I will take the responsibility of guarding Hokage-san on myself. Won’t you tell me where she is?”
“That’s ridiculous. You are no match for them.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to use the ace up my sleeve?” Haruya glared. Chiaki made up his mind. He returned the glare with a seriousness that declared he was sincere and announced challengingly, “...I’m not leaving until you agree.”
It became a test of endurance.
Haruya had apparently instructed the members of the head house, “Do not engage with them”; no one intervened. They remained in the silent spacious room. The stove had been carried away, and the temperature in the room dropped precipitously as the night deepened. Tetsuya shook from the cold even though he was wearing a jacket, but the shaking of his fists was perhaps also due to another reason.
“This family...” Tetsuya groaned lowly again and again. “I’m cutting all ties with this family...”
“Miike.”
“I need to gain my independence as soon as possible... After that I’m gone.”
He could see their coldness toward Tetsuya. It’d been apparent as soon as they’d arrived. And it wasn’t just because he was from the branch family.
(This is why small towns get a bad name.) Chiaki thought, bored and fed up. Maybe it was because the feudalistic patriarchal system was still so deeply-rooted in such places.
Chiaki had severed ties with his family and relatives long ago, and he could see how unbearably oppressive it was for someone with Tetsuya’s personality. He’d watched Irobe and others live through four hundred years of such a structure with their bonds of obligation with equal parts disgust and admiration.
(It must feel pretty cramped.)
He sympathized with Tetsuya. Doubtless it was not altogether unrelated to the reason for his becoming a problem child.
He looked at his watch. The hands indicated 1 a.m. Chiaki’s thoughts returned to immediate concerns.
(I’m gonna have to turn up the heat.)
They’d been given 48 hours. They had to produce Hokage at midnight the day after tomorrow.
(Morning, then?)
If Haruya made no move by morning, he’d have no choice but to use the ace up his sleeve.
(I’ll use hypnotic suggestion to make him talk.)
At dawn the exhausted Tetsuya fell deeply asleep.
Though birds had begun to sing, the sky was still dark. The time was 5:30 a.m.
“?”
Just then, he heard sounds from the inner rooms and indications that someone was coming—venturing outside via the main entrance.
Chiaki stood and followed. Sure enough, it was Haruya.
He walked out of the entranceway alone and set off on foot along the still-dark road bordering the rice paddies.
(Where is he going?)
He was carrying a rope-like object woven out of straw. There was the scent of something burning—there was a small fire at the rope’s end.
Morning’s glow suffused the eastern sky. The air had grown both much colder and much clearer; only the cheerful voices of the birds broke the silence. The Five Peaks of Aso stretched majestically beyond endless paddy fields.
After taking the road into the village a little ways, Haruya headed for a certain shrine. It stood isolated past a torii, so small that it was more wayside shrine than anything else.
‘Frost Shrine’ was written on the torii’s placard.
Haruya walked to the front of the shrine and performed his formal obeisances with burning straw in hand.
“...”
Chiaki watched. Haruya straightened and said without turning, “As head of the Miike, I must worship here every morning.”
Though he had never turned to look behind him, he had sensed Chiaki’s presence. Chiaki nodded. “What about the burning straw?”
“This is flame from the bonfire ritual.” Haruya looked over his shoulder at Chiaki. “The Miike family receives the sacred fire every year on the day of the night-crossing and maintains it throughout the year in our household shrine. Of course it must be brought along in our daily worship.”
“This is Frost Shrine? The one that enshrines the god to whom the bonfire ritual is dedicated? It’s smaller than I imagined.”
“Bonfire Hall is on the opposite side across the street. That’s where the chosen bonfire maiden is shut up for sixty days to tend to the Frost God’s fire.”
“I see,” Chiaki said, approaching with his hands tucked into his pockets. "What an odd deification. A much larger shrine—Aso Shrine—is around here, right? Does it have something to do with the ‘Frost God’ too?
“In fact,” Haruya smiled for the first time, “without Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, this shrine wouldn’t exist. After all, Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto himself built this shrine.”
“What?”
“Frost Shrine is also known as Frost Hall. We raise the fire of the bonfire ritual to warm the god and prevent him from bringing an early frost down on the crops...” Haruya’s smile vanished. “But the true purpose of the festival is to protect the rice from the onryou’s curse.”
Chiaki’s brow creased. “Onryou’s curse?”
“Yes. The true form of the god deified at Frost Shrine is the onryou of a man named Kihachi, who was beheaded by Aso Shrine’s Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto,” Haruya quietly explained.
He was also called ‘the Buddhist Priest Kihachi,’ a strong warrior of this land from ancient times, a retainer of Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto. According to legend, this Kihachi was the possessor of superhuman strength and stamina, and Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, who loved firing his bow more than anything else, tasked him to retrieve his arrows. The god would sit on one of Aso’s central volcanic cones, Oujou Peak, and shoot at the ’Target Rock’ in the Tail Rock cluster. Sometimes the swift-running Kihachi would go to pick up an arrow that had missed the target. He made 99 rounds, but on the 100th trip, feeling tired and annoyed, he gripped the arrow in his toes and threw it back at Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto.
The god was angry. “Disgraceful!” he raged at the crude way in which his arrow had been handled. Kihachi tried to run; the god gave chase. Then, after a violent struggle, the god cut off his head.
Yet the decapitated head returned to its body. Kihachi had to be cut into many pieces before he finally died.
The decapitated head flew high into the sky. From then on Kihachi’s flying head became an onryou full of resentment for the god, and it brought early frost and drought on the crops. The people couldn’t survive without food, and the distressed god built a temple right in the center of Aso Valley to placate Kihachi’s spirit and call him back to earth. Thus Kihachi’s head returned to earth and was enshrined at Frost Temple (Lower Hall), and afterwards the frost no longer fell. —This was the origin of Frost Shrine.
The bonfire ritual was to ensure Kihachi’s head slept peacefully in warmth (the cold pained it) and did not wake up to torment the people.
“Kihachi...he’s the one you call Onpachi-sama?” Chiaki exhaled a long white plume, his cheeks stiff with cold. “There’s something I still don’t understand. How does your family come into it? You’re no simple shrine parishioners no matter how I look at it.”
“...”
It didn’t look as if Haruya was going to answer the question. Chiaki pondered.
“Tetsuya said you’re descended from Asara. Who is Asara-hime?”
“Asara-hime was the name of Kihachi’s wife.”
“Wife?”
“Yes.” Haruya lightly swung the burning end of the rope. “You probably already know that there was once a place in Aso known as Takachiho. It is mentioned in the legend of descent of the sun goddess’ grandson to earth. Legends from there depict Kihachi as an evil bandit.”
“...”
“This evil bandit forcibly took Asara-hime as his wife, and she spent her days in tears and sorrow. But one day, a noble personage known as Mikenu-no-mikoto appeared before Asara-hime.”
“Mikenu-no-mikoto...”
“Yes. He was the younger brother of Emperor Jimmu—the primary enshrined deity of Takachiho Shrine. The god resolved to exterminate Kihachi and rescue her.”
But Kihachi could not be eliminated so easily. Though killed over and over, he came back to life again and again. In the end, together with a master of martial arts called Tabe Shigetaka, the god defeated Kihachi, chopped his body into many pieces, and buried them such that he could never put himself back together. Many of the mounds where pieces of Kihachi were buried still existed in Takachiho. The sword which the god used to killed Kihachi was called ‘Onikirimaru’, or ‘Demon-Slicer,’ and became a treasure of Takachiho Shrine.
Mikenu-no-mikoto took Asara-hime as his cherished wife, and they lived happily ever after.
“Asara’s bloodline... You’re not suggesting you’re descended from Asara-hime, are you?”
“One of Asara-hime and Mikenu-no-mikoto’s children is our distant ancestor...”
“...!” Chiaki stared at him. “Wh...at!”
“You want to say it’s impossible, I suppose?”
“...”
Haruya continued calmly, “Our bloodline has continued for a thousand and some hundred-odd years in order to fulfill a certain wish of Asara-hime. I’m the 98th head. Our lineage rivals that of the successive generations of the Aso family, who serve as Aso Shrine’s chief priests. ...The Miike family’s other name is ‘Shadow Aso Family’.”
Haruya slowly crossed his arms and quietly gazed at the Five Peaks of Aso to the south.
“Shadow...Aso Family...?”
“Yes. Miike—Divine Pond. Specifically, the crater of the Middle Peak [Naka-dake] .” Haruya pointed at the faint white smoke rising from the center of the Five Peaks. “You can barely see it because it blends into the clouds, but the Middle Peak is still active. Since ancient times that crater has been called Divine Spirit Pond, or simply Divine Pond because it looks like a pond when it fills with rainwater. That’s where my family’s name comes from.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Miike family is tasked by Aso Shrine with custodianship of the crater. We keep watch over the activity of the Middle Peak. Do you know why?” Haruya asked. Chiaki shook his head, and Haruya lowered his head a little. “Asara’s descendants are said to govern the Middle Peak’s eruption.”
“...” Chiaki was silent for a moment. “Why...”
“Kihachi’s hatred will cause the Middle Peak to erupt. Because Asara was Kihachi’s wife.”
Haruya stopped. He’d said Kihachi’s wife. But wasn’t the ancestor of the Miike family the offspring of Asara-hime and Mikenu-no-mikoto?
(What’s going on...?)
And Asara’s wish—what had she wished for?
“Asara must be born for Onpachi-sama’s sake.”
That’s what Tetsuya’s grandmother had said. What did that have to do with ‘Asara’s wish’? Mikenu-no-mikoto’s descendants revered the villain he had slain as ‘Onpachi-sama’. He didn’t think it was simply fear of being cursed.
(What’s with this Miike family?)
There didn’t seem to be any further explanations forthcoming. Miike Haruya bowed his head as if in prayer before abruptly turning to face Chiaki directly.
“You said you’d help us. That you would protect Hokage.”
“Yeah.” Chiaki collected himself and straightened. “I meant what I said. If you’ll help us rescue Inaba.”
“I’ll need proof.” So saying, Haruya extracted a talisman from inside the breast of his kimono. On it was a stylized image of the Big Dipper and the words of a purification rite. Haruya lit the amulet with his burning straw-end, and as it burst into flames he hurled it at Chiaki.
“...!”
With a whoosh a blue blaze flared from Chiaki for an instant.
It was completely heatless, and a moment later disappeared along with the talisman.
“Ah...” Haruya was a little startled. This was the first time he’d witnessed such a magnificent blaze. “Splendid. You are the possessor of no small amount of spiritual power, I see. Who are you?”
“What was that just now?”
“A flame that reacts to spiritual power which used the power you emit—your aura—as its fuel. I’m amazed.”
“Well, of course,” Chiaki snorted a laugh, blustering, “I’ll protect your young lady from all comers. There aren’t many who can pick a fight with me.”
“You’ll protect Hokage, truly?” Haruya stressed the words, expression stern, “No matter who you must face?”
His gravity aroused Chiaki’s doubts. From the look of things, Haruya had a very good idea of ‘whom’ it would be. Not an onshou—which meant:
(A third party...?) Someone between the onshou and the Miike family. (Whoever it was...)
—Who had leaked the secret of Asara-hime—of the Miike family to the onshou. Perhaps Haruya knew who the culprit was.
Chiaki expression turned cold.
Even if he had to bluff his way through this, he had to undertake the role of Miike Hokage’s bodyguard for Inaba’s sake.
“Don’t worry, guarding young ladies is my forte.” Chiaki folded his arms cockily. “The more I hear, the more questions I have, but for now I promise I’ll let no harm come to Miike Hokage. ...Tell me where she is, Miike-san”
“Very well. ...But first,” Miike Haruya said in a low voice, “there is something I must investigate.”
“Investigate? What do you mean?”
“I must go to Aso Shrine.” Haruya looked east, the direction in which Aso Shrine stood. “It is of the first importance. I must know whether its «Golden Serpent Head» is safe. ”
“Golden...Serpent Head...?”
“Yes. If it has been taken, then I must say matters are extremely urgent.” Miike Haruya asked Chiaki, his expression rigid, “Would you come with me, Chiaki-sensei?”
The cold morning wind ruffled Chiaki’s coat. Chiaki stiffened his spine and glared balefully toward Aso Shrine.
Chapter 12: The 'Eagle's Feathers', Unbroken
Someone looking at the northern outer rim from the Five Peaks of Aso might well forget they were still in Japan.
The top of the northern outer rim was mostly grassland. It was flat in every respect, and in its winter desolation, it looked like the bare rock of a precipice from a small distance away. It had the appearance of the Grand Canyon, Japanese edition.
At the circumference was a circle of mountains—but this was no mountain range. It had been formed by a cave-in, and was more like the border of a pond. That was why the height of the crater’s northern outer rim was almost entirely constant.
Did this man even know about the Grand Canyon?
Nezu Kouichi—aka Katou Kiyomasa turned when he sensed the door opening.
“Did you sleep well?”
A man and woman in casual jeans inquired as they entered— two of the bird-people who had helped them at Katou Shrine yesterday. Kiyomasa answered indignantly, “Oh, very well indeed, thanks to the drugs you forced on me.”
“We’re glad to hear it.”
“Why are you holding me prisoner?” Kiyomasa pressed a hand against his left shoulder. “How dare you inject foreign substances into my body? You think you can use such things to hold me?”
“There are disadvantages to being kanshousha, it appears,” said a slightly older woman with long hair who entered behind the two others. She was one of the pair who had attended Takaya in the hospital, the woman in the cherry suit. “Inside your body is a magical stone called the luminous flame stone. We used the same to disperse our enemies yesterday. It is a substance crystallized by the spiritual power of the volcano. It will either heat or cool at my command. You cannot remove it yourself.”
Kiyomasa glared with loathing at the woman as she explained in calm tones.
“What happened to Uesugi-dono? Is he alive?”
“...Our patron wishes to speak with you.”
“What?”
The woman made a signal toward the door, and a much older man entered. —He was not one of the bird-people.
(This man...) Kiyomasa recognized immediately: this man was like him.
“Katou Kiyomasa-dono, I assume,” The man addressed him by his true name.
“Who the hell are you?” Kiyomasa demanded, very much on his guard. “You’re an onshou. Which clan do you belong to? State your name.”
The man smiled softly at Kiyomasa’s harsh demanding tone. “Kagetora-dono would know immediately.”
“What?”
The man had the bird-people leave the room. Once they’d quietly exited, leaving the two of them alone, the man spoke. “Yesterday’s events were quite the calamity. Such a battle, alas... I’m glad we were able to make him withdraw, damn that Rairyuu. What folly, to act on his personal enmity. Even Shimazu-dono must feel quite uneasy to have such a ticking time-bomb for an ally.”
“Who the hell are you?! One of Shimazu’s commanders?!”
“Kiyomasa-dono, you trained from an early age to serve as one of His Excellency the Taikou’s commanders, I believe. I retired at the same time you entered Toyotomi’s service and so never met you face-to-face, but I’m sure my younger brother met you many times at Osaka Castle as a member of the Council of Five Elders... ”
“Council of Five Elders?”
At Kiyomasa’s amazement the man said mildly, “It appears you have chosen to side with Oda in the «Yami-Sengoku». ...Which is only reasonable, of course. The Taikou himself was originally one of Oda’s commanders.”
“Exactly! Lord Nobunaga was the Taikou’s lord. I must serve Lord Nobunaga in order to repay the Taikou’s debt of gratitude. Besides, Kumamoto is where I was raised, and it is precious to me!” Kiyomasa answered emphatically. “I had to be resurrected in order to protect the people of Kumamoto, who have idolized me and built shrines in my honor. I could not allow the onryou to run amok in my city!”
“Yet you are now in our hands.”
“...!”
The man thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and walked toward Kiyomasa. “We decide whether you live or die.”
“...What do you plan to do with me?”
“The Itsuku Island debt has not yet been repaid. Oda invaded our homeland along with Sue Harukata. You are an enemy general. Under ordinary circumstances you should have been eliminated immediately. However.”
“!”
“There is much information I must extract from you regarding Oda. Kiyomasa-dono, you are our prisoner of war.”
“You bastard!”
The man repelled Kiyomasa with his will as Kiyomasa lunged toward him.
“!” Kiyomasa’s back slammed into a wall, and he crumbled to the floor. “Curse you!” Kiyomasa pressed against his left shoulder and bared his teeth in bitter rage. “What happened to Uesugi-dono?! Does he yet live?!”
“Are you concerned for him?”
“I’m going to capture that great tiger and present him to Lord Nobunaga!”
“Then I shall tell you that he is dead.” As he walked out, the man looked over his shoulder. “You’ll have to escape your own cage if you wish to exterminate tigers.”
With those words the man disappeared through the door. Kiyomasa slammed his fists into the wall in frustration. “Damn it...!”
The man hadn’t given his name. Who was he?
(His brother was one of the Council of Five Elders? Itsuku Island’s debt? Sue Harukata...?)
“!” Kiyomasa turned. All the keywords lead to a single conclusion. “Was that...!”
Their hideaway was located halfway up one of the Five Peaks of Aso, Eboushi Peak. It had been built within the mountain forest in the style of a deserted lodge. From there a narrow path led up to a small ‘detached’ log-house a short distance away.
A light snow danced on the air outside.
As the man walked up the narrow path, a woman emerged from the log-house: one of the bird-people from earlier—and one of those who had accompanied Takaya to the hospital...
The woman bowed slightly to the man.
“How is he?”
“He finally regained consciousness a moment ago. He’s still out of it, but he is capable of speech.”
“He’s awake? What is his condition?”
“He’s stable. Much recovered compared to last night.”
A look of relief softened the man’s expression. “I see.”
“He’s still a little feverish, but with rest it should come down before long. His body has adjusted to the embedded luminous flame stone. The stone’s power should be aiding in his recovery. I believe he’s able travel if necessary, but it would be better not to move him for the time being. ...Also,” the woman lowered her voice, “his emotional strength is somewhat low. A decline in vigor influences his power of recovery, so it would be best if you were careful with him.”
“... I see,” the man sighed, shoulders sagging, before finally nodding lightly. “I understand. I’ll go see him in a moment. You have a budding physician among you, I believe. Thank you. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.”
“To be of assistance to you is our privilege. ...We have laid a suggestion on the hospital staff, so there is no need to worry about loose ends. The dirty school uniforms have been sent out for cleaning. If there is anything else we can do, please do not hesitate to ask.”
“I will.”
“In that case,” the woman bowed and was about to turn back when the man stopped her. “...Yes...?”
The man looked as if he were searching for words. After a moment he smiled wryly and said, “Thank you...for saving him.”
The bird-woman smiled and bowed slightly.
Perhaps their scrupulous tact was due to their upbringing. The bird-people, with the exception of their leader, never inquired deeply into anything even in conversation. Their restraint and work ethic made them excellent partners.
The man entered the log house.
“...”
The curtains were drawn, and the interior was dark save for a floor lamp dim enough that it did not disturb a sleeper. Lying on a bed in the back, attached to a complete set of medical first-aid equipment, including an IV and simple ventilator, was Ougi Takaya. He open vacant eyes. He did not yet seem in possession of all his senses, and he peered up at the ceiling with his eyes only half-open.
He didn’t react to a person entering the room. The man came to his bedside and gazed down at Takaya for a while, but Takaya didn’t acknowledge him by so much as a flicker of his eyes. He only gazed up at the ceiling with his lips slightly parted. The man slowly bent and said, leaning over Takaya, “Kagetora-dono. ...Do you know who I am, Kagetora-dono?”
“...”
“It’s me, Kikkawa Motoharu. Kagetora-dono.”
Takaya’s eyes opened a little and shifted a tiny amount. After a moment, he repeated in small hoarse voice, “Kikka...wa Motoharu...?”
Motoharu nodded.
Son of Mouri Motonari and one of the ‘Two Rivers’, this man, Mouri general Kikkawa Motoharu, had fought Takaya and the Uesugi two years ago at Itsuku Island.
But Takaya’s reaction was dull. He gazed at Motoharu as if in a dream. His lack of recognition was not without reason, for Motoharu was now wearing another face; he had switched vessels.
“You’ve been through hell, Kagetora-dono. You’re safe here. You can put your mind at ease and rest.”
“... Ah...” Takaya slowly closed fever-wet eyes.
He was painful to look at.
The wounds he’d sustained in his defeat against Shimozuma Rairyuu were more serious than expected, but quick medical care had at least preserved his life. He’d suffered blunt-force trauma over the entire length of his body...his ribs had been fractured. His other wounds had required many stitches...
(Saving you took some doing.) Perhaps anyone who still had his limbs attached after suffering an attack from that rabid dog of the Ikkou Sect, the infamous Rairyuu, should count himself lucky. Takaya’s lids fell as if they were too heavy for him to hold up any longer. Motoharu gazed at his face, first with sympathy, then with something like loneliness, (...How gaunt and haggard you look.)
He seemed to have lost weight since Motoharu had last seen him.
How had Kagetora lived through these two years?
Kikkawa Motoharu had not been «exorcised» during the battle at Itsuku Island. After the ‘Yamato’ had sunk, he managed to escape Takaya’s «barrier exorcism» thanks entirely to his retainers. During Nobunaga’s attack, Kuchiba Michiyoshi had sacrificed himself to protect Motoharu.
He recalled all of them as he looked at Takaya. Kuchiba had literally been his shield. When they’d been thrown into the ocean, Kodama Narikata and the others had aided him without heed for themselves. His memory had cut short in the midst of chaos.
By the time he came to, Motoharu had found himself alone on a ship belonging to a certain general in the ocean west of Itsuku Island.
“...”
Motoharu’s mouth tightened. Everyone had probably pooled their strength to save him. But they themselves had all been caught in the light of the «barrier exorcism» and gone to the place they belonged.
And Motoharu alone had been left behind.
(Yet—...)
Motoharu had not been the only one left behind in that battle...
“... Kagetora-dono,” Motoharu addressed him again. He quietly called to him several times. “How are you feeling? Do you feel pain anywhere?”
“...”
“Are you cold? Do you want anything?”
“Water...” Takaya begged in a light gasp. “I want water...”
Motoharu picked up the glass pitcher designed for nursing sitting on the bedside table. He placed its narrow elongated spout against Takaya’s slightly parted lips and gently tilted it so that water slowly flowed forth. Takaya took two, three swallows. Motoharu lightly mopped away the drops which had spilled from the corners of Takaya’s mouth with a towel, and a hot breath sighed from Takaya’s moist lips.
Takaya’s eyes were still only half open; he didn’t seem to comprehend the situation he was in. Motoharu threw some fresh logs into the fireplace and stood.
“Naoe—...”
Motoharu turned. “What?”
“Is Naoe not here...?”
“...”
Takaya sluggishly brought the back of his hand to his forehead.
“I keep hearing his voice. Until just a moment ago...”
“In a dream?”
“...No—...” He closed his eyes and exhaled another hot breath. “If he wasn’t speaking to me in person, then it was by telepathy... I’m sure...of it...”
“Kagetora-dono.”
He’d been dreaming, Motoharu interpreted.
He’d heard from a certain source that Naoe was dead. Certainly his decline had already been precipitous, his spiritual powers below that of an ordinary person. He’d been in no condition at all to perform kanshou. He’d been purified—there was no doubt of that.
(He even dreams of his voice...)
Motoharu pitied Takaya.
“Where...am I?”
“Our house. We’re in the mountains of Aso.”
“Aso...”
“Yes. This is a safe place. You can recover here without fear until your injuries have healed. They’ve driven Rairyuu off,” Motoharu said, sitting down in a plain wood chair. “You recall the people who came down out of the sky, I think? They saved you—they’re the Himuka. They possess the ability of flight.”
“Himuka...”
It sounded familiar, but his mind was still hazy, and he couldn’t recall clearly. Takaya slowly moved vague eyes to him. “Kikkawa...Motoharu...”
“Hmm?”
“...Is it really...you?”
“As you see. I exchanged vessels, but I’m sure you can tell, Kagetora-dono. Or do you have so many enemies you no longer remember me?”
“You weren’t...«exorcised»...?”
Motoharu confirmed this. Takaya either didn’t quite believe in the reality of the situation or simply couldn’t muster the energy for wariness; he only gazed vacantly at Motoharu.
“Why did you...save me...?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“...I am...the chief architect...of Mouri’s destruction.”
“Nobunaga was the one who sank the ‘Yamato’. Though you were probably the one who killed Takakage and Terumoto.” Motoharu looked down and sighed heavily. “But for some reason I don’t feel any hatred towards you. Though at the time I was mad with hatred and rage...”
“...”
“I wondered...” Takaya opened his eyes fully. “...how you survived.” Motoharu looked at Takaya with deep emotion. “How did you live these past two years?”
“Two years...”
“Has the pain of losing Naoe eased to some extent?”
Takaya stopped breathing.
“?” Motoharu seemed rather nonplussed by Takaya’s reaction, which was a little different from what he’d imagined. “What is it?”
“What did you just...”
“Ah, my apologies. True, it would be best if you didn’t talk too much at the moment. There are many things I would like to speak with you about, but they can wait until you’re a little better.”
“What do you mean by ‘losing Naoe’...?” Takaya asked very seriously. “What are you talking about?”
Motoharu stilled. He realized his suspicions had not been his imagination. “Kagetora-dono?”
“Two years...” Takaya looked directly at him. “Two years from what?”
“The battle at Itsuku Island, obviously. I regretted Naoe very much. Though Uesugi and Mouri were enemies, I grieved his death.”
“His death?” Takaya’s expression grew stranger and stranger. “You said Naoe died?”
Motoharu’s eyes widened. Takaya dropped his eyes a little and smiled.
“...I don’t know where you heard that, but you’re wrong. Naoe...isn’t dead.”
“Kagetora-dono.”
“You’re saying Naoe died on Itsuku Island? Who told you that...?”
“At Hagi, Kagetora-dono,” Motoharu stated firmly. “At Hagi Castle. You don’t remember?”
“Remember? What...am I supposed to remember?”
“Do you remember conversing with me? When you sealed your written oath to obey the Mouri with your blood? You revoked it in order to recover Naoe and burned down the castle with firedrakes. Then, I believe, you went to save him—I’m talking about what happened after that.”
Takaya suddenly froze. He finally looked slowly up at Motoharu. Motoharu looked seriously back at him with eyebrows raised. Takaya...suddenly touched by a sense of unease, averted his eyes.
“Look at me, Uesugi-dono.” Motoharu gripped Takaya’s shoulder and raised his voice. “What’s wrong? You look strange. Do you not remember what happened thereafter?”
Takaya shook his head repeatedly.
“You and he must have met Terumoto. Naoe was shot trying to shield you from Terumoto’s gun, wasn’t he? You raised a blazing tornado. I heard your scream. I know that fearsome power that destroyed Hagi Castle belonged to you.”
“I don’t know anything...!”
“Kagetora-dono!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Blazing tornado? Scream? Destroy Hagi Castle? Naoe was...shot?” Takaya violently shook his head. “None of that happened.”
“Kagetora-dono, you—”
“None of it...!” Takaya began to say, but an image of the horrible scars on Rairyuu’s face flashed into his mind.
“I had it from you in Hagi, from the blaze created by your monstrous power!”
“None...of...!”
“Kagetora-dono!” Motoharu pressed the unraveling Takaya, “Could it be that you really don’t know?! You don’t remember?!”
“Blaze... Blaze...!” Takaya muttered, a dark red rapidly clouding his retinas. His shut his eyes tightly. Motoharu gripped his shoulder harder.
“Is it because of this injury? Or was it like this before? You said earlier that Naoe is alive. In that case, where is he?!”
“I met him yesterday...no, the day before...at the hotel...!”
“That’s impossible!” Motoharu contradicted him without hesitation. “Whom do you think of as Naoe? Since Itsuku Island, Naoe Nobutsuna has been nowhere on the Uesugi front lines—that’s been unanimously confirmed by multiple sources!”
“That’s not true! We’ve fought together! We’re always together.”
Motoharu’s expression was stiff, and in his amazement he looked at Takaya as if he were something quite bizarre.
(He...)
Motoharu thought over what he knew of this person.
As he’d guessed, this was not someone who could go on living as if nothing had happened.
Not after suddenly losing Naoe, whom he’d clung to to a pathological degree.
(Has he...gone mad?) Motoharu swallowed. (Is madness what has kept him alive?)
“Kagetora-dono. How much do you remember of what happened at Hagi?”
“How much...? Everything.”
“Let’s trace your memories back one more time. After you left me, firedrakes were burning down the estate, and you went to save Naoe. After that...”
“After that—” Takaya pressed against his temples, trying to remember. He’d seen Naoe within the flames. He’d seen Naoe...and then.
(And then...)
“Do you not remember, Kagetora-dono?”
“I...re...mem...!” His hands pressed against his temples, Takaya shook his head violently in anguish. “Nnn!...Nnn!”
“Kagetora-dono!”
“Nnn... Aaah!” Takaya screamed, unable to bear it any longer. It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember. Simply recalling the preceding events oppressed him with apprehension and unease, and the sweat poured from his entire body. His heart pounded an alarm, and the fear was so overwhelming that he felt like he was about to go mad.
“I’m afraid...!” Takaya cried out in a voice full of tears. “No! It’s too scary...!”
“Kagetora-dono!”
“Aaaaah!”
Unable to stand the sight any longer, Motoharu wildly seized Takaya’s shoulders. “All right! Calm down, you don’t have to think about it any more. We’ll save this talk for when you’re better.”
“...Ungh... Uuungh...” Takaya didn’t hear him. He was still shaking his head, his eyes bulging almost out of their sockets and his hands pressed against his face. Motoharu shivered as the shoulders beneath his hands quaked.
(Heavens above...)
Takaya let out a moan. His jaws spasmed as he gritted his teeth.
(This is Kagetora?)
Motoharu was stunned.
“I’m the only one qualified to say whether he lives or dies. Nobody else has that right!”
That Kagetora...
“I won’t allow anyone else to encroach on that existence!”
(Is this your answer?)
Motoharu covered his mouth with his hand, feeling as if he were looking upon that which should not be seen. What was this?
Kagetora’s words and actions of that day, which had so overwhelmed Motoharu, revived one by one in his mind. Was this the continuation?
(Is this your culmination—yours and his?)
The conviction of ownership and ostentatious monopolization Kagetora had displayed had been overpowering. To have all of another human being’s feelings directed toward himself, to possess the entirety of another’s existence: was that madness?
Was it because he had wanted what ‘a person can never want from another person?’
Takaya trembled violently and audibly. He had sunk himself into a state of turmoil. Even now he seemed about to cry out at the impact of seeing something he didn’t understand.
(What was that just now...?) Takaya himself could not identify its true nature. (At Hagi...!)
Motoharu looked at Takaya with harsh eyes. (Is this just punishment...?)
Was this ‘the debris of lunacy’?
Motoharu shuddered as he stared silently at Takaya.
Powdery snow fell ceaselessly.
Upon leaving the cottage, Kikkawa Motoharu noticed a man in a white coat loitering in the shadows of a tree. The man, who had jet-black hair and almost feminine clear white skin, lightly snorted a laugh as Motoharu stepped out.
“Things have gotten interesting, don’t you think, Kikkawa-dono?” his red lips murmured. “Uesugi Kagetora—I had not thought he was such a foolish man.”
“You heard our conversation inside?” Motoharu looked worn. He addressed the other man: “Kousaka-dono.”
Kousaka Masanobu’s seductive lips curved upward as he turned his usual bold smile on Motoharu.
“Rairyuu, that cursed fool. He was told to kidnap the girl, but nobody asked him to attack Kagetora. An ostensible ally like him makes me worried about our future.”
“...Truly. To put Kagetora-dono through such suffering...”
“Oh...?” Kousaka tilted his head. “You take his part quite readily. Has our lord of the Two Rivers transferred his feelings to Kagetora-dono?”
“Of course not.”
“Hum. Kagetora-dono is quite disturbed. The rumors are true, it appears. The ones that say he thinks of the man of Fuuma as Naoe now that Naoe himself is dead.”
“What?” Motoharu looked sharply at Kousaka. “Can this be true?”
“Oh, aye. Kikkawa-dono has been with Shimazu all this while, so you have not heard, but it is quite true. It’s quite shocking. Foolish beyond belief, of course. It practically screams ‘make use of me’ to his enemies.”
“...”
“Well, so Naoe was replaceable to Kagetora-dono after all. How childish of him.”
As usual, he did not mince his words. His whereabouts had been a mystery for a while, but to no one’s surprise he had not died at the naval castle. Neither had he switched hosts; his wicked tongue was as lively as ever.
“What do you intend to do with Kagetora-dono, Kousaka-dono?”
“This and that. ...Certainly one would not release a tiger one took such trouble to cage. Does Shimazu-dono not desire such a gem? He would make a fine vessel or display piece. Please do your best to up-sell this masterpiece.”
Kikkawa Motoharu was currently a guest commander of Shimazu Yoshihiro. A Shimazu ship had saved him after the naval battle at Itsuku Island. Afterwards he had stayed with the four Shimazu brothers and led what remained of Mouri into battle in Buzen.
“You called him a vessel just now.”
“Oh yes. Quite. He is a vessel.” Kousaka’s smile was pregnant with significance. “Don’t you think this tiger is the perfect vessel Shimazu-dono is seeking?”
“...But—”
“At any rate, Kagetora-dono will return to the Houjou. In that case he will be our ally and all problems are resolved.”
“You mean to persuade him? I do not think Kagetora-dono will submit so easily. Even at Hagi his trust in Kenshin remained unshakable, and he rejected our proposal. He is not to be underestimated.”
“Pooh-pooh. There is no need for concern. I have a wonderful idea.”
“Idea?”
“This is too good an opportunity to miss. Let us make use of the Fuuma. He doesn’t think Naoe is dead: good. With conditions as they are, it should be simple to entrap Kagetora-dono. This is the perfect chance to lure him away from the Uesugi.” The beautiful strategist raised a long finger and caught a gently falling snowflake on its tip. “Our profession calls for us to exploit the enemy’s weakness. We bring everything on ourselves. Kagetora-dono will have no cause for complaint.”
“You mean to allow him to get wind of that rumor?” Motoharu demanded sharply. “But ’tis still only a rumor. How much will Kagetora-dono believe it, I wonder?”
“He’ll believe it. Besides, it’s not baseless.”
“What?”
Kousaka chuckled. “Kagetora-dono said there was a ‘voice calling him’ in his dreams, I believe? There certainly was. While he was in a coma, someone was trying again and again to reach him by telepathy.”
“Really? Who?”
Kousaka would not tell him the source. But the discovery seemed to amuse him deeply, and he gloated with private delight.
“Well, that’s as it may be. Let’s turn to business. After the Himuka devotees bring back Kihachi’s head, all that’s left is to await Asara’s arrival,” The beautiful strategist said, narrowing his eyes. “We’ll be able to see a specular show soon here in Aso.”
Motoharu glared at Kousaka, expression tense. “We have not had another super-weapon since the ‘Yamato’. Do you really think we’ll be able to handle it, Kousaka-dono?”
“We have a reliable sensitive in the person of Kagetora-dono. Demon King Nobunaga won’t stand a chance this time. Let’s destroy him, Motoharu-dono.” Kousaka laughed. “Or maybe Kenshin and his dogs.”
Snow filled their vision as Aso’s mountains clad themselves in their robes of white.
Chapter 13: The Two Julias
Kaizaki Makoto was deeply disturbed.
Something terrible had happened.
He’d again woken to find himself in unfamiliar place. Maybe he was still dreaming. But the sensations definitely indicated that this was reality. He wasn’t in his own room. He seemed to be lying in a hospital bed. Why was he sleeping in a place like this?
He immediately looked at his watch. Due to the many times this had happened, this action had become automatic. He peered at the date: February 20th.
“It’s been ten days...?!”
This was no joke. He searched for his glasses in order to clarify his current situation, but they were not next to him. As a last resort he squinted (as nearsighted people tended to do) at the view outside the window, but as he’d anticipated the scenery was unfamiliar.
(It happened...again.) Kaizaki Makoto shuddered. (The other me took over again.)
Horror and despondency swooped down on him, and even his shoulders felt heavy. As usual, his memories of the in-between time was virtually nonexistent. He’d been in his own apartment in Chigasaki. ...How many times did this make?
(I must have done something totally nonsensical again.)
And it must’ve been horrible enough this time to finally put him in the hospital.
“Aagh...” Makoto let out a hopeless groan.
He no longer doubted his own freakishness. It was incontrovertible.
(Spare me...)
He felt like praying.
These past few months, he’d been haunted by another Kaizaki Makoto. A split personality, he supposed. During unconscious states, he acted like a totally different person. Though his memory had days-long, weeks-long gaps, the people around him claimed that he’d been up and about per usual when he’d asked. He’d heard about things like this happening, but he’d never expected it to happen to him. Even his relationships with his co-workers had suffered because of it. Maybe he was having a breakdown due to the many managerial crisis, he thought, and had consulted a doctor, but...
(Where in the world am I...?)
He was on the verge of calling a doctor to ask about the particulars about why he’d been brought in—when the door opened, and a tall woman entered. She was beautiful and had an energetic air about her, but she was unknown to him. She looked at him, and for some reason her face turned forbidding.
“So you’re finally awake, Kaizaki Makoto.”
Makoto was suddenly uneasy. ...Had he done something bad to this woman?
Kadowaki Ayako seethed with anger.
It was understandable, of course.
She‘d left Kaizaki to the doctors’ care when Shimazu Iehisa’s attack had left him unconscious and chased after Iehisa herself, but he’d managed to shake her off.
She’d heard Shimazu of Satsuma’s troops were currently advancing into the area around Higo and were now storming Yatsushiro, but that they had infiltrated Kumamoto City, even on a guerrilla warfare basis, was a bolt out of the blue. ...The Shimazu army’s invasion was rousing onryou from various ancient battlefields in the area, and the casualties were climbing steadily. Kagetora had dispatched the «Nokizaru» and Uesugi soldiers to deal with the situation, but there had been no decisive measure, and tranquilization had not been achieved.
If Shimazu entered Kumamoto, they would engage in a three-way fight with Ootomo and Oda. Tensions were running high among the nearby onryou. If the barrier came down and Shimazu troops surged into the city, the streets would be transformed into an onryou battlefield.
Ayako had not anticipated running into Shimazu, and was thus in a lather.
But there’d been at least one silver lining. She’d learned that the man and woman who had accompanied Kagetora were indeed the missing Himuka cultists. She’d shown the doctors and nurses pictures to confirm it.
The woman was Saeki Ryouko.
The man was Enoki Masamichi—the leader of the young believers who’d been such a favorite with Faith-Protector Ikeda.
Saeki Ryouko lived in Kurume. She’d been witnessed flying away from the fire. She’d been positively identified.
From the looks of it, there was little doubt they were the ones who’d abducted Kagetora (’s corpse?)
The only odd piece had been the driver of the hearse. He’d confirmed that Takaya had been in the car, but he had no memory of where they’d gone. Upon regaining his senses, he’d found himself on National Highway 57 near Tateno heading toward Kumamoto. Nobody had seen who had removed the corpse. There the thread had been cut.
(National Highway 57.)
It led into Aso.
(But even knowing he’s in Aso...)
As Kaizaki had suggested she’d called out to Kagetora many, many times, but had no sense that she’d ever reached him, and had received no response. She was stuck, and had returned wondering if this man knew anything more.
Why had the Himuka cultists helped Takaya? Why had they found it necessary to lie about being family to take his corpse (which Ayako still didn’t believe?)
“What the hell do those Himuka cultists want?” Ayako demanded, glowering at Kaizaki Makoto. “If they have something to do with the «Yami-Sengoku», where are they from? You told me Kagetora fought Shimozuma Rairyuu. Did the Himuka cultists help Kagetora because they’re his allies? Or...”
“Excuse me... I’m really sorry, but...” Makoto commendably interjected from the bed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I seem to have caused a lot of problems, but I... Um, I don’t actually know you.”
Ayako’s eyebrows jumped up. “What...?!”
“I’m so sorry. I know I’m in your debt for any trouble I caused. It’s just that I, I don’t even know where we are.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?! You’re in the hospital. Shimazu blasted you and you lost consciousness. Did you hit your head and forget?!”
“Shimazu? Did I have some sort of fight with this person?”
“?”
Ayako’s eyes widened. His reaction was odd. Makoto thought hard for a moment, but he finally stopped and gave another hopeless sigh.
“So this time I had a fight while I was out? ...Unbelievable.”
“I haven’t understood a single word you’ve said.”
“I’m sorry, but could you tell me where I am? Right, I know this is the hospital, but what about prefecture and city... or town, probably? What is the address?”
Ayako was bewildered. Was he playing dumb? She was about to yell at him, but Kaizaki looked so serious that she stopped.
“What in the world are you...”
“I know you have a right to be angry, but I really am not fooling around. I don’t know your name, but you probably have something to do with the other me.”
“Th...the other you?”
“Yes.” Makoto pressed both hands against his forehead. “I don’t know if you can believe me, but I think I’m sick. I’m not sure how to explain it—I think it’s called a split personality. While I’m asleep, another consciousness takes control of my body, and I act like another person entirely.”
“You...you think I’d really believe a thing like that?!”
“This is a difficult situation...I’m not really sure what to do.” Makoto pondered with furrowed brow. “Will you call my family doctor to confirm, then? He knows me well, and I believe he’ll know that I’m telling the truth. He’ll be able to explain the symptoms to you as well,” Makoto said. He took up the notepad beside the bed and began to write.
Huh? Ayako thought. Something was different from yesterday. (He’s left-handed...?)
She was sure Kaizaki had held the pen in his right hand last night. Even the handwriting was different. The characters he inscribed on the notepad were long and narrow, slanting leftward, somehow giving the impression of a nervous temperament.
“Please call this number.”
Ayako hurriedly compared the note he handed her with the note from last night. They were completely different. Both the handwriting and the styling of numbers. The numbers on the new note looked digital. The two handwriting styles indicated completely separate personalities.
(What is going on...?)
“Oh. Not again,” Makoto suddenly muttered, looking at the watch on his left wrist. “Damn it. I’m left-handed, so I wear my watch on the opposite wrist from most people. But the other me appears to be right-handed. It just feels wrong to me.”
He took off the watch, looking exhausted. She realized that his speaking style was different. The utterances of the Kaizaki she knew had depth. Now he talked too fast and sounded extremely bureaucratic. There was no lingering reverberation at the end of his sentences. Yet he didn’t sound histrionic or affected.
“What is going on here...?” Ayako was bewildered. “You really have a split personality?”
“It’s true.” Kaizaki nodded heavily. “Can you please tell me where I am? I would like to contact my doctor and co-workers.”
“We’re in Kumamoto.”
“Kumamoto?!” Makoto’s voice jumped an octave. “Kumamoto—the Kumamoto?! In Kyuushuu?! What in the world... I can’t believe I traveled such a long distance. What in the world is happening? What the hell is going on?!”
“You really don’t remember anything?” Ayako peered at Kaizaki with increasing concern. “Not even about the «Yami-Sengoku»?”
“Yamisengoku... What is that?”
Ayako stared at Kaizaki, half stunned. “Then you don’t know me either? Or Ougi Takaya?”
“Ougi... Takaya...?” Kaizaki put his hand to his mouth and ruminated. “That name...”
“You know Kagetora?!”
“Ougi Takaya...” Makoto reciting the name several times as if to sound it out. “Ougi... Takaya... I don’t know who that is, but... Somehow... I feel like I’ve said that name many times before.”
“What does that mean? Why?”
Makoto grew more and more agitated as he repeated the name. His face suddenly became uneasy, and he pleaded, “Who is that? Do you know this person? Is that the name of the ‘other me’?”
“No. No, it’s not...”
“For some reason my chest feels so...”
Tight and obstructed. Could these be lingering emotions left by ‘other him’?
“Ougi...Takaya...” Kaizaki pondered, trying desperately to wring some information out of the name. Ayako examined his face, awaiting his answer, but he could grasp nothing concrete. “How am I connected to this Ougi Takaya?”
“....” Ayako was a bit creeped out. (This guy is really weird.)
Actually, he’d been weird from the beginning. His actions at the rocky stretch on E Island had certainly been so. Yup, there’d been something wrong with this man from the start. There was something about him...which was especially evident when it came to Takaya.
He was the one who’d confined Takaya. And after that Takaya had started acting strangely. He’d glared at Ayako with real feeling when she’d joked that the bruises on the back of his neck looked like hickies. His reaction had been so disproportionate that it had made her even more suspicious. From that time onwards Kaizaki’s name had become taboo for Takaya. He always overreacted whenever the subject came up. Then afterwards he would look pained and mope.
(Why...)
Then there was yesterday. Why had Kaizaki tried to help with Takaya’s disappearance when he was working with Ootomo...?
“Just who the hell are you...?”
Ayako was on her guard. She didn’t understand anything about Kaizaki. She knew he was genuinely perplexed, and it creeped her out even more.
This man...called him Takaya. Ayako knew one other person who did so. And Takaya had cried when Kaizaki covered him with his coat.
(It can’t be...)
Was it just coincidence? No, there was something there. It explained things.
(I’m overthinking this.)
But they’d searched so hard and had found nothing. He’d been so weak. He would have needed a miracle. And besides, Kaizaki’s split personality was not due to possession. There was only one soul within this body. Plus, she would have immediately recognized his soul.
(Just a similarity?)
Maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that a person of the modern era used by Satomi would have a split personality.
She recalled something strange Yagami had reported after the E Island case: the suspicious way in which Satomi Yoshitaka had vanished. The energy signature in the place where Yoshitaka had collapsed had been exceedingly similar to that left behind by «exorcism». Also, at the time—
(Kaizaki wasn’t on E Island...!)
“Could it be...” Ayako moaned.
Kaizaki suddenly lifted his head. “Could it be...what?”
“Kaizaki, if you have a split personality, then change places with the other you right now. Have him come out.”
“I can’t... not from my side.”
“Other Kaizaki! If you really have a split personality, come out right now!” Ayako suddenly seized his collar, startling Makoto.
“Cease this violence! It’s no use!”
“I need to know! Kaizaki Makoto, just what the hell are you...?!”
“Cease...this...violen...!”
“You! Are you...?!”
Kaizaki’s body twitched. What? Ayako thought. An instant later Kaizaki’s fist drove into her solar plexus.
“Guh...” Ayako moaned, collapsing face-down onto the bed. Kaizaki’s expression had already changed into someone else’s.
The other Kaizaki had appeared.
“I’m sorry...” Kaizaki said in the low voice Ayako recognized. “Stay in Kumamoto. The barrier point Kiyomasa erected at Honmyou Temple is beginning to crumble.”
“Kai...”
“Iehisa appears to be on the move. Shimazu’s forces will be here soon. I don’t know what will happen to Kumamoto if the barrier falls. The streets will become an onryou battlefield.”
“Why...did...you...”
Kaizaki’s gaze softened slightly as he went down on one knee beside Ayako. He gently placed his large hand on her head.
He told her quietly, “I know where he is. He is not dead. I will bring him back.”
With those words Kaizaki quickly stood. He retrieved his coat from a hanger and put it on, re-clasped his watch on his left wrist, and hurriedly left the room.
Ayako shut her eyes in pain. Tiny tears formed on her lashes.
(...Na...o—...?)
His footsteps finally faded down the corridor.
Kaizaki Makoto emerged onto the main street and hailed a taxi, quickly giving the driver his destination.
“Tateno Station, and quickly.”
(That was quite an embarrassing defeat.)
Synchronization was difficult within a barrier, unsurprisingly. Kaizaki sighed in frustration. To have been struck unconscious by Shimazu Iehisa...
(Haruie’s realized, if vaguely.)
Well, fine. With Takaya immobilized, the old Uesugi would not be able to function smoothly. Kaizaki was the only left to give directions. Either way, all would be revealed soon enough.
(... I wonder what answer you’ll give, Haruie.)
His synchronization had been disrupted due to his concentration on reaching Takaya telepathically. Takaya had responded to his call. The Gohou Douji he’d sent to search for him could not approach due to a barrier.
(Damn it...!)
Kaizaki gnashed his teeth. No matter much much power he obtained, how studiously he played devil’s advocate, the truth was that he’d failed to protect Takaya. This one man. What use were these powerless hands? If he couldn’t save him in reality, he had nothing. Hadn’t he been happy when he’d been able to make his body a shield, despite being crushed? Despite their mutual loathing?
(No...!)
He was not wrong; he would save Takaya, Kaizaki told himself—as he had many times before. He could do it. No, he had to do it.
(If I don’t, then I have no right to this new lease on life.)
When he closed his eyes, he could see Takaya screaming. In dread and irritation Kaizaki bit the joint of his finger.
(You can’t right now, Takaya-san...)
If he tried to sail against the current of his psyche and something went wrong, it would break apart. Though his call couldn’t reach Takaya, Takaya’s fear and dismay reverberated in him. The fact that he could sense it over such a distance meant that Takaya’s anxiety was intense indeed.
(You must not probe any further.)
“I want to wake myself up by my own power.”
But Takaya didn’t know that to do so was fraught with catastrophic danger.
(I will not allow you to fight alone.)
He didn’t know what he could do for Takaya. But his first priority was to be with him, Kaizaki thought with determination.
(I don’t care about logic.)
Quibbling about logic was all very well, but he had to go to him—that was the greatest power this body was capable of.
Even if he could be of no use whatsoever in Takaya’s chosen fight, he wanted to be with him, grasp his hand. Even if he could not shoulder any of Takaya’s suffering, he could hold him in his arms.
(How can I be your strength?)
He could no longer look on from afar. He could not condemn Takaya for even his self-inflicted suffering.
(You saved me.)
His second chance, his strength.
(You gave me that,) he murmured inside his heart, softly closing his hand over the ever-lingering warmth of his skin as he submerged himself in the memories.
“Naoe...”
How completely he’d been saved that one short night.
That night Kagetora had saved him from the ‘mistake’ made by a great many people. He’d never realized before how anxious and afraid his feelings had made him.
How could he ease those concerns? I never wanted to scare you—but was he capable of saying those words?
(I wanted you...from the bottom of my heart.)
The ‘weakness’ of his refusal to turn around for fear of loss; the ‘unfairness’ of a desire for eternal worship, everything. As he held Takaya in his arms, he had wanted with tempestuous intensity to take even the vilest, most unredeemable parts of this being into himself.
(Extinction must transform into something else.)
It was Kenshin who had bestowed on him another chance at life. That was why he was working to carry out Kenshin’s commands. ...Yet, It was Kagetora who had given him the strength to live again.
Given him the strength to rise from his grave on their unfinished journey.
Utopia is not yours alone, but ours, Kagetora had said.
The same Kagetora who’d said he believed in nothing, hoped for nothing...
Those words had given his dying heart a last burst of strength...
“I can’t trust you...”
Naoe wanted to heal Kagetora’s pain, to peel away the many layers protecting his heart and know the innermost parts of him, but at his core Kagetora had always rejected him. His own ‘irredeemable egotism’ (loathing for a superior being, the groveling disposition of a loser, a belligerent persecution complex) had prevented him from approaching the parts he should have healed.
Despite his obstinate rejection, Kagetora had cried with even greater intensity: “I want to be healed.”
(I’ve...known all along.)
Kaizaki shut his eyes painfully and tightened the fists on his knees.
(I will change, I swear it.)
If to throw away his ‘irredeemable egotism’ meant ‘death of the self’, then he wouldn’t. I’ll embrace it and change into someone with the power to heal you.
(I’ll turn this egotism, too, into the power to heal you.)
That was how he chose to love.
It had to be possible.
Because he had chosen to live again to make that transformation a reality.
(I won’t let you fight alone.)
Kaizaki gazed out the window, praying that he would be in time.
There was a break in the line of cedars along the avenue as the national highway continued onward to Aso’s outer crater rim. The car followed it straight down with the valley on their right. He’d traveled this same road a long time ago.
About thirty years ago, in fact.
It was here in the Aso mountains that they’d gone to ground in order to protect Minako from Oda.
Just before that final battle, Naoe had left the front lines by Kagetora’s command to escort Minako to a place where their enemies‘ eyes could not reach. Kagetora himself had recognized that she would be his Achilles’ heel in battle.
“I don’t want her involved,” he’d said, and commanded Naoe to guard her.
Nagahide and others had vehemently objected to Kagetora’s decision to remove one of the Yasha-shuu from the front lines. But Kagetora had stood firm. He had then caught on to and put a stop to Nagahide’s plan to murder Minako. That was one of the reasons for Nagahide’s long absence.
His hostility had not been toward Nagahide alone.
His relationship with Naoe had been icy for a long time.
“I entrust Minako to you,” Kagetora had said, that day he’d summoned Naoe. “You I can trust.”
But his eyes had said, as always, “I can’t trust you,” even while he’d issued his commands.
Naoe had not stopped speculating about his true motives since that day. Maybe he’d meant exactly what he had said. Or it had been his conclusion upon performing an analysis of their fighting power. Or it had been an act of malice. Had there been a hidden objective? It had felt like a trap.
It probably had been a trap.
It had happened here in Aso.
This was where he had done those terrible things...to the woman Kagetora loved.
Naoe had never atoned for those crimes.
Snow was falling in Aso. The trees of the outer rim wore a heavy white coat, but the roads appeared to be unaffected.
“It’ll be heavy going tonight,” The driver commented after listening to the forecast. “City cars don’t do well in snow, and if it piles up this road’s going to be congested something fierce. Not enough people put on chains...”
Kaizaki looked up at the heavy gray clouds.
(Snow, hm...?)
Snow had fallen just like this that day, too.
The car turned right off the national highway and descended toward the valley on a narrow hill road. Located in a gap in the outer rim, Tateno was right at the junction of Southern Aso Railway with JR’s Houhi main line, which served northern Aso.
The taxi arrived in front of Tateno Station.
A familiar 4WD was parked there awaiting Kaizaki.
“Kaizaki-sama...!”
A man in a duffel coat got out and waved at him: Hakkai.
Kaizaki alighted into into cold snow fluttering down from the sky.
Sunlight pierced through a gap in the clouds and glittered silver on a tranquil ocean almost complete devoid of waves.
He felt as if he were looking at a lake. Beyond the Ariake Sea, which might well be mistaken for a wide river, rose the silhouette of a tall mountain.
“It’s gotten a bit misty,” Irobe Katsunaga commented to the girl beside him as they walked from the ferry boarding entrance to the wharf.
“That’s the Shimabara Peninsula over there. The hill before that is Mt. Mayu, and the tall mountain beyond that is Unzen Fugen Peak. Shimabara City lies before it.”
Irobe had come to Kumamoto’s new harbor, about thirty minutes out of Kumamoto City by car.
Passengers bound for Shimabara had begun to embark at the wharf. It took about an hour to reach Shimabara Harbor on the opposite shore by boat. The direct distance was approximately twenty kilometers, so it was closer than Aso.
The ferry landing had only recently been completed, and the new waiting area had an adorable roof made of triangles of various sizes. Though there was still some time until departure, a group of passengers rushed toward the wharf. Irobe looked after them for a while before returning his gaze toward the ocean.
Far off in the distance, smoke rose from Fugen Peak, blending into the clouds so that it was impossible to tell where smoke ended and cloud began.
“Fugen Peak has calmed a great deal, but it’s unpredictable. Did you know that the mountain around it is a dark reddish-brown? It was covered with greenery long ago, but pyroclastic flow burned everything.”
“...”
You could spot the traces of the disaster even from across the sea. The smoke had decreased a great deal from its most active period, but there were still days during which ash fell within Kumamoto City depending on the direction of the wind.
Irobe turned to the girl, a petite student in sailor uniform.
It was Mikuriya Juri.
She was gazing out at Fugen Peak with arms crossed; she said after a moment, “Shimabara is a place of deep significance to us early Japanese Christians, Irobe-dono.” She pointed to a distant island on their left. “Those are the Amakusa islands. Amakusa might be called the capital of the early Japanese Christians, since that is where ‘Superior Almeida’ propagated his teachings. Almeida-sama was close friends with my lord Ootomo Sourin, and he visited Usuki many times. It was also where Gakurin was located, which made it all the more the Christian capital. Until it was officially made a prohibited religion, that is,” Mikuriya Juri added, the smile disappearing from her lips.
The storm of oppression against Christianity also devastated Shimabara and Amakusa. Crucifixion and torture to set an example... Indescribable brutality—suspension over pits, torture by fire and water, confinement, maggots hatched to eat into people’s stomachs—with children included in the deaths. All the martyrs had died believing they would go to Heaven.
Countless believers had renounced their religion in the face of intense oppression and horrifying torture.
“Those were not things done by human beings,” Mikuriya muttered somberly. “Those who committed those acts were demons.”
“...”
What dark experiences lay in her past? Mikuriya’s glassy-eyed, tight-lipped expression was like that of a bitter old woman. This was so far from her usual manner that Irobe looked at her askance.
Irobe, of course, knew of that era. He’d seen crucified Christians with his own eyes, and had heard many more gruesome stories.
“Julia-dono...”
She abruptly returned to herself at the call of her name. Mikuriya shut her eyes and sighed deeply.
She took several old coins out of her pocket and showed them to Irobe. They were bound by a string through the holes in their centers.
“This is?”
“It’s called a money buddha. This is how it works.” she said, and hung the six coins from their connecting string. She then tied the string so that the coins formed a cross.
“A rosary...”
“This was something carried by the underground Christians. Normally they were just coins; only when we prayed did we spread them out.”
This was how the Christians who went underground to escape oppression preserved their faith. They carved crosses into sword guards, small accessories, walls and pillars, and worshiped in secret. The Maria Kannon was also one of these objects. These were some of the many and varied ways through which this underground faith had kept itself alive.
Amakusa had had many families of these early underground Japanese Christians which had passed their beliefs from generation to generation after the prohibition and until the Meiji era. They had appointed leaders called water-minders in place of priests to perform baptisms and lead ceremonies. But the passing of ages turned the litanies of prayer into meaningless mantras, and the religion itself unmoored from Christianity and transformed into a bizarre local cult.
“...” Mikuriya quietly closed her hand over the ‘money buddha’, her expression brooding.
Announcement of the ferry’s departure reverberated around the harbor, followed by a steam whistle. The passengers had finished embarking. Juri waited until the sound of the whistle faded and only the slap of the waves remained before adding to Irobe, “Did you know that I am Sourin-sama’s second wife? I was originally his first wife Jezebel-sama’s lady-in-waiting. He divorced her because she obstinately refused to convert to Christianity.”
“I had heard that she belong to the Nata family, who served as chief priests of Nata Hachiman Shrine.”
“Yes. She could never convert because she came from a family who were chief priests of Hachiman, the god of war.”
Jezebel was the nickname given her by the Jesuits after her death. She was said to have been a bad wife.
“But it was understandable. My lady was the wife and daughter of Sengoku commanders. She couldn’t have abandoned her belief in Hachiman, the god of war.”
As a result Julia herself had been detested as a husband-stealer...
Mikuriya Juri sighed deeply and cast her gaze across the ocean at Fugen Peak with its rising plume of smoke. Her eyes then slowly traversed the boat.
“Where is Supreme Commander Naoe-dono now?”
“In Nikkou. He has entrusted this entire operation to me, Irobe Katsunaga.”
“I see. I was astonished by your alliance gift of Ryuuzouji Takanobu’s head. What magnificent command. Now Ootomo can enter Saga without difficulty.”
“Higo has now been isolated from the other territories under Oda’s influence. When Kiyomasa is gone it too will fall into our hands.”
“Yes, if all goes well. Look,” she said, pointing toward the Ariake Sea.
Irobe looked in that direction. Far ahead of the ferry he could see an indistinct object like a ball of fire. Irobe strained to make it out more clearly.
“Sea fire? Is it really appearing in the middle of the day so far from Yatsushiro?”
“It’s not any sea fire. Look more closely. That is a Shimazu boat.”
“A Shimazu boat?!”
Irobe gave Mikuriya a surprised look. She nodded.
“Now that they’ve stolen Yatsushiro, Shimazu’s forces are maneuvering to invade Kumamoto by land and sea. You can see their flag: a square cross in a circle. That is their scouting vessel.”
She had apparently spotted it a while ago.
Mikuriya stared across the ocean with grim intensity. Irobe finally realized: (I see...)
He now knew why Mikuriya had called him out here. As commanding officer of Kumamoto, Mikuriya was reporting on the movements of the Shimazu navy to Uesugi’s envoy. She herself was an outstanding commander. Her face as she spoke was that of a cool and collected strategist. Irobe’s expression turned solemn.
“What measures do Ootomo intend to take?”
“The Ootomo navy has not yet arrived. It is engaged in battle with Chousokabe in the Genkai Sea and cannot be moved. ...We can hold the land route all the way to Saga, but we are requesting a navy to assist us with the sea route.” Mikuriya looked straight up at Irobe. “We would like Uesugi to provide us with naval reinforcements.”
“Naval...”
“Yes. We have a little time. Can you do it?”
“...We will make every effort to assist. But it will only be a matter of time before Shimazu enters the Ariake Sea.”
“We will shut Shimazu out,” Mikuriya said with confidence. “We will use the Five Bridges of Amakusa to blockade the channel and prevent them from entering Shimabara Bay.”
The Five Bridges of Amakusa, called the Pearl Line, were immense bridges of great symbolic significance that connected the Amakusa Archipelago to the Kyuushuu mainland.
“Similarly the great bridge over Amakusa Strait to block Hondo Strait. And lastly we’ll establish a wall to blockade the Hayasaki Strait between Shimabara and Amakusa so that no Shimazu ship can enter Shimabara Bay.”
“Wall? Who will be able to accomplish such a thing? Unless I’m mistaken, you do not have a single Ootomo soldier on Amakusa.”
“My brethren are there.”
Irobe did not at once understand Mikuriya’s meaning, but then his eyes widened. “You can’t mean... the spirits of those who died in the Shimabara Rebellion on Amakusa...!”
“I will resurrect the spirits of Hara Castle.” Mikuriya looked toward Shimabara Peninsula with a faraway gaze. “Do you know what binds the hearts of people together into a great power, Irobe-dono? Faith. In the Sengoku, bonds between parents and children and lords and retainers were virtually nonexistent. Faith alone bound people strongly together. Those who came to violent ends in that infamous uprising were my brethren. This bond is far stronger than the hostages and interests that are used to weld alliances together.”
“...Julia-dono...”
Mikuriya raised her rosary from its place against her chest and gripped it tightly in her small hands.
“The Amakusa-Shimabara Rebellion was at its core an uprising led by Christian farmers against tyranny and oppression. Amakusa Shirou-sama and many of the fief’s population fought believing that our Lord would help them. After a three-month siege, none found salvation except in being called to Heaven through death. Yet their spirits remain on this earth. Were they too sad, too bitter? They didn’t go to Heaven.”
“...”
“This land of Kyuushuu is dotted with numerous spirits of martyrs. I think these spirits did not ascend to Heaven after death because their faith was insufficient. They must be desperately calling out the name of God from beneath the ground. Yet still they are denied Heaven.” Mikuriya looked straight at Irobe. “I will create a kingdom for the spirits of the old Christians in Aso and convene them there. The «Golden Serpent Head» summons spirits. With it I can gather those who have become earth-bound. I can call to the dead languishing beneath the earth and incite them to come to the place of prayer once more. All will repent of their sins, pray, upraise their faith, and this time go to Heaven.”
Irobe silently looked at Mikuriya Juri as she gripped her rosary tightly and spoke with passionate conviction. Her goal was a paradise for the resentful dead—that was the Aso kingdom she spoke of.
She would erect a barrier over the Aso caldera and create her own country.
“... So that’s what it is.”
Was Mikuriya’s goal, to put it in their terms, the purification of the spirits of her brethren?
(No...) he thought, looking at the ‘money buddha’ in Mikuriya’s hand—that was not all. She had deep-rooted convictions.
Why was she carrying a ‘money buddha’?
“Julia-sama, I believe you said your name was Otaa?”
“Yes.” Mikuriya turned to him. “Julia is my Christian name. Why do you ask?”
Irobe lightly shook his head. “It’s nothing... It may be a coincidence, but do you know of someone with the same name as yourself—surname Otaa, Christian name Julia?”
“What. No—where was she from?”
“She was Lord Konishi Yukinaga’s adopted daughter. Lord Yukinaga brought home with him a girl who was orphaned in the Imjin War. She received a Christian baptism and subsequently was in Lord Ieyasu’s retinue.”
“Oh?” Mikuriya’s black eyes grew round. “Lord Ieyasu’s...”
“Yes. She did not renounce her religion after the prohibition and was exiled to Kouzu Island. Even now there is a festival on that island which is associated with her.”
“...”
A dark shadow suddenly passed over Mikuriya’s eyes.
She lowered her expressive eyes and finally smiled.
“I see. So she didn’t become an apostate.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing...it’s only a coincidence that we share the same name...” she said, grasping the money buddha tightly.
(I see. This woman is...)
“The demon serpent’s eggs implanted in the students of Old Castle High School will hatch in a day or two.” Mikuriya’s expression had already returned to that of the student council president. “The suggestions I’ve applied will gather the fighters hatched from the demonic serpent at the school in their assigned order. The ’iron student council’s training is flawless. They will be a magnificent and disciplined castle garrison corps.”
Actually, the already-hatched students had been gathering at the school since last night. The uniformed students assembling deep into the night had exceeded two hundred.
Koganezawa Kyouko was among them.
Even Mikuriya, who had addressed the late-night student meeting, had been captivated by their splendid discipline. Old Castle High School’s uniform had become their combat uniform.
“Yokote no Gorou will have taken command at the school. This is the result of six months of effort. The «Golden Serpent Head» is gaining in strength in concert with us. All that’s left is to excavate the object itself, and I will be the master of the serpent. With it under our control, even Shimazu’s hoards will present no difficulty.”
“...”
“The construction of the «Destroyer of Provinces» also goes well. Look here.”
Mikuriya’s attendant passed Irobe a newspaper from that morning. The front-page article took up much of the page and reported on the explosion of a cement-manufacturing factory in Fukuoka.
The accident had occurred yesterday. The plant had suddenly exploded, resulting in major and minor injuries to several employees caught in the blast.
“This is...”
“The cement factory were the accident occurred is located at the foot of Kawara Peak, the same place where Ootomo’s strategic Kawara Peak Castle once stood.”
“Kawara Peak Castle...”
This castle, called the most strategic location in Buzen, had been the site of ferocious battles between Ootomo, Mouri, and Shimazu during the Sengoku. Kawara Peak was formed from three peaks, and was an ancient copper-mining spot where bronze mirrors and the like had been discovered. The first peak now held a lime-mining operation for use in concrete, and was only half the size and a mere shadow of its former graceful self. The flattened mining surface rising in a perpendicular precipice of bare white rock presented a bizarre spectacle.
“Kawara Peak was once a battlefield. The mountain is steeped in the deep-seated grudges of warriors who died in regret. What will happen when the stone and copper containing massive amounts of this resentment are made into a great cannon?”
“So that’s the cannon «Destroyer of Provinces»...!”
“Yes,” Mikuriya smiled. “This resentment appears to have activated in the cement factory and exploded. Tachibana Dousetsu-dono is even now engaged in the construction of this cannon at Kawara Shrine. The eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent and the «Destroyer of Provinces»: these are Ootomo’s ultimate weapons. Neither Shimazu nor Oda will be a match for us. Rather, we shall bring the fight to our enemy,” Mikuriya stated with confidence, looking up with resolute eyes. She faced the Shimabara Peninsula on the other side of the sea.
Irobe looked up from the newspaper, looking tense.
The horn of the boat crossing the Ariake Sea sounded a low note within the bay.
Chapter 14: Snow Falling on a Labyrinth
From afar the Five Peaks of Aso resembled the sleeping form of a person.
From east to west, the peaks were: Neko [Root], Tall [Taka], Middle [Naka], Kishima [Mallet/Vajra Island], and Eboushi [Bird hat]. Neko Peak’s precipitous and rugged rock face looked like a person’s nose, mouth, and chin; the gently-sloping Tall Peak like a person’s chest; the smoking Middle Peak like part of a person’s naval.
Since ancient times the people of Aso had called this sleeping figure ‘Shakyamuni entering nirvana’.
But those who knew the cruel side of Aso’s fire mountains had another interpretation: that this was not Shakyamuni entering nirvana, but Asura’s sleeping form.
The snow had grown steadily heavier.
A car arrived at a lodge halfway up Eboushi Peak. The road appeared to be blanketed already; its tire grooves were white with ice and snow.
A young man in a suit got out of the driver’s side: Himuka cultist Enoki Masamichi, leader of the bird-people. It was he who had picked the especially talented young people out of the Himuka faithful and formed a subgroup to perform tasks separate from those of the main religious organization.
“Protector,” the members who had come out of the cottage to meet Enoki greeted him, Saeki Ryouko at their head. She presented him an umbrella.
“Welcome back.”
“The snow has gotten pretty bad. We’ll need chains soon. ...Yasuo,” Enoki addressed a young man, the youngest among them. “Put on the chains, will you? I can never install them properly, probably because I’m so unused to them. You’ll be okay if I leave the cars to you?”
“Yes!” young Yasuo replied very earnestly and seemed about to go off on his assigned task at once.
Enoki smiled wryly. “Later is fine. There’s something I want to report first, which you should hear as well. ... Saeki, where is Motoharu-sama?”
“Waiting inside.”
“Let’s go.”
All the members answered in the affirmative and followed after Enoki. They called themselves the Himuka Bird-people Flock and totaled nine members, including their leader Enoki. Their ages ranged from 18 to 31, with most in their twenties. Though each of them had awoken only recently to the flock, all faces bore the pride and confidence of being one of the chosen.
The followed ‘New Faith-Protector’ Enoki into the lodge.
“]]Kihachi]]’s head is gone?” Kikkawa Motoharu replied when he heard the news, his expression grim. “What do you mean? Was it not at Aso Shrine?”
Everyone was gathered in the hall on the first floor with its large fireplace. Motoharu was seated on the sofa. Enoki responded, “Records say that in the sixth year of Jougan (864), Kihachi’s head was moved from Frost Shrine to Aso Shrine when the volcano erupted. But it is clear from our investigation that such an object does not currently reside at Aso Shrine.”
He had, with the help of an associate university professor of his acquaintance, conducted a search of the shrine’s treasures for a purported research project. They had been unable to confirm the existence of the head from interviews of those connected with the shrine.
“The record was mistaken, then?”
“The account is from a Miike document.” Enoki’s long single-lidded eyes glinted. “I do not think it would be mistaken about something connected to Kihachi.”
“Then where do you think it is?”
Aso Shrine’s records never mentioned Kihachi’s head by name. Enoki believed the lack of records meant the object was kept as a secret offering and had investigated further. Using the fact that the offering had been made in the twelfth month of the sixth year of Jougan, he had examined various records pertaining to the shrine’s treasures and finally discovered something like the object in question.
“Discovered? So it is there?”
“Yes. It is practically guaranteed to be the treasure given as ‘votive offering in the twelfth month of Jougan six’. But this treasure was carried out of the shrine as a gift four hundred years ago in the fifteenth year of Tenshou (1587).”
Motoharu reacted sharply. The fifteenth year of Tenshou was when Hideyoshi had conquered Kyuushuu.
“Do you know to whom it was presented?”
“Yes. The feudal lord of Higo at that time...” Enoki leaned forward in excitement. “—a commander named Sassa Narimasa.”
“What. Sassa... Sassa Narimasa-dono?!”
Enoki nodded. “But only the fact that the gift was made was recorded, not its current location. Narimasa died a year after he became lord of Higo. Its whereabout after that...”
“You’ve lost the trail then...?” Motoharu sighed deeply, deflating.
Enoki continued. Perhaps Narimasa or the Aso family had private records with further details.
“Hmn. How absurd that Kihachi’s head, so crucial to our efforts, cannot be found,” muttered the slender black-haired man standing behind Motoharu.
“Kousaka-dono.”
“Lofty proclamations about releasing Kihachi’s onryou are meaningless if his head cannot be found. Taking Asara-hime alone will accomplish nothing without the head.”
Kousaka’s haughty tone rather irritated the Himuka cultists. The young man called Yasuo interjected from one side, “The investigation is ongoing! We don’t need you to tell us how important Onpachi-sama’s head is! We’ll find it!”
“Naturally. You were the ones who proposed this plan. ...You want to resurrect Kihachi. We want the power to destroy Ootomo and Oda. Thus we are allied, and have pooled our strength together. We’ve already set a plan in motion to seize the missing Asara-hime and even readied Kihachi’s vessel.” Kousaka smiled cruelly. “You want to restore Himuka as a great power. The sooner you find the head, the sooner you reach your goal.”
The cultists’ hands clenched into fists.
Kousaka looked at them with sardonic eyes, then snorted and gazed at the bright blaze in the fireplace.
“Sassa Narimasa, huh...? Humph, if I’d known earlier, I wouldn’t have allowed him to die so quickly.”
“After Sassa Narimasa-dono’s death...?” Motoharu pondered, and then suddenly lifted his head to look at Enoki and the others. “...That man probably knows something.”
“The treasure Aso Shrine presented to Sassa-dono?” Kiyomasa returned Enoki’s gaze guardedly.
“Yes,” Enoki nodded.
If Motoharu’s guess was correct, Narimasa’s successor Kiyomasa probably knew something. As a matter of fact, Kiyomasa himself had lent a great deal of aid towards restoring the Aso family, chief priests of Aso Shrine, which had fallen into ruin during the turbulence of the Sengoku. He had also zealously maintained and repaired devastated wayside shrines and temples.
He had heard about the «Golden Serpent Head» from one of Narimasa’s surviving retainers...
“...” He didn’t immediately respond. He guardedly leaned back in his rocking chair, eyes half-lidded, and sagged a little. He studied Enoki and Saeki’s expressions attentively.
“There is a record of a treasure in the twelfth month of Jougan. You took over Sassa Narimasa’s castle; surely you know of it.”
“I’m not sure I do...” Kiyomasa bent his head a little, feigning ignorance with a completely straight face. “I believe the greater part of Narimasa-dono’s estate was dedicated to his family temple, but I heard nothing of a gift from the Aso family. ...Are you sure it existed?”
“Lying—...” behind Enoki, Saeki Ryouko lightly pointed to her own left chest, “is not in your best interest.”
She was implicitly threatening Kiyomasa with the burning pain of the luminous flame stone buried inside him. But Kiyomasa was not one of Hideyoshi’s Seven Spears for nothing.
“I can do nothing about what I do not know. Even if this object existed, His Excellency the Taikou probably seized it after the ritual suicide. What was this gift presented by Aso-dono anyway?”
“A human skull,” Enoki answered in a low voice.
“Skull?”
“Yes. It was formerly Frost Shrine’s divine body. Despite its human origin, the skull looks like it came from a large serpent. It so resented Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto for cutting it off that it transformed into a serpent-like shape.”
(What?) He silently lifted his eyes.
Kiyomasa knew nothing of this tale.
(Human? It’s not from the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent?)
“The skull is a vast reservoir of hatred,” Enoki explained coldly, slowly walking over the carpet towards him. “Onpachi-sama’s hatred—no, onryou reside within the skull. Its power is said to be such that it can sink Kyuushuu beneath the ocean. There would be no turning back if it ends up in the wrong hands—if it is handled carelessly.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s said that inside this skull is more than just a single person’s hatred.” Enoki’s expression was menacing, like that of a completely different person.
“Shall I tell you the truth, Katou Kiyomasa, of what is entrapped within that skull?”
“Protector...!” Saeki warned.
Enoki’s chin jerked up, and he stopped. The look they exchanged was so deadly serious that nothing could interrupt their silent communion. Kiyomasa tensed internally at the gravity of it.
(I’m sure of it...!)
The ‘human skull’ they spoke of, which Aso Shrine had presented to Sassa Narimasa, was—
(It must be the «Golden Serpent Head».)
The treasure beneath the old castle that Ootomo was also after. Mikuriya and her lot had called it the head of the serpent. They must have taken control of Old Castle High School in order to get their hands on the head of the ‘eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent’.
But what was Enoki talking about? This was the first time he’d heard of it. Didn’t the «Golden Serpent Head» belong to a large serpent that had once lived beneath Aso? Wasn’t it an incarnation of Aso volcano’s magma?
(What are they talking about?)
These people, they had called it Onpachi-sama. The head beheaded by Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto? He’d never heard before that the «Golden Serpent Head» was a human head. He’d interacted with the members of the Aso family, but had never heard such a tale. Had even they not known?
And it supposedly entrapped onryou of terrible power?
(So terrible that it’s capable of sinking Kyuushuu beneath the ocean?)
What kind of monster could that be? One beheaded by Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, who had reclaimed Aso from the wastes, apparently.
“...” Kiyomasa gulped, but discreetly, to go unnoticed by his two visitors. How had these people come by knowledge that neither he, nor Sassa Narimasa, nor Ootomo knew...?
(What are they planning?)
He had no idea. People of the modern age who were allied with Mouri and could fly. Who were they? What was Kikkawa Motoharu’s real aim?
(Fine...) Though Kiyomasa’s expression revealed nothing, he had come to a decision. He abruptly stood. “Though the object you speak of seems quite extraordinary, I know nothing of it. If it is so important to you, betake yourselves to Toyokuni Shrine and inquire of His Excellency the Taikou directly.”
“...You really don’t know anything?”
“Tiresome dolts! To whom do you speak? I am the divinity of Katou Shrine. Would a god lie?!”
“...”
“How dare you take such tones? If you would confine a god, at least present me with my offerings. What tasteless fellows. If you must be so absurd as to fly in the air, keep it to the women; I have never yet heard of a male celestial maiden. And my tea’s gone cold while you were blathering on. Bring me another cup, if you please. And teacakes while you’re at it.”
Enoki and Saeki looked at each other.
“Does this place not have hot springs? I have not bathed since yesterday; my skin is crawling. I love cleanliness! I don’t eat meat! My soup must have nameko [mushroom]! Are you listening to me?!”
(What nerve...) At last, exasperated by Kiyomasa’s demands, Enoki gave a few instructions to Saeki and left the room.
Saeki looked annoyed by the fussy nobleman, but nevertheless fetched the coffee pot and poured him a new cup.
Kiyomasa waited until she had finished pouring. Saeki seemed not at all wary of him, perhaps due to the implanted luminous flame stone. She poured carefully.
“There,” she said curtly. Kiyomasa returned to his chair, slowly picked up the cup, and examined her openly and rudely. The blatant evaluation of her figure offended Ryouko, who glared back. Kiyomasa deliberately smiled a lewd smile.
“...You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”
“What?!” Ryouko said. Kiyomasa examined her countenance with even greater focus.
“I thought you were the woman of that fellow Enoki, but that appears not to be the case. What a waste for such a pretty woman. Why not be my woman?”
“!” Ryouko goggled. A sharp pain ran through the left side of Kiyomasa’s chest. The luminous flame stone suddenly blazed with heat.
He inhaled sharply.
As his body jerked upright, the coffee cup fell out of his hand, spilling hot liquid all over Kiyomasa’s thighs.
“Ah...! That’s hot! Ow ow ow!”
He sprang up and jumped around, screaming from the scalding burn. Startled, Ryouko hurriedly picked up the towel next to her.
“Are-are you all right?!” As she tried to wipe him dry— “!”
Kiyomasa grasped Ryouko’s hand tightly. Surprised, Ryouko lifted her head. Her eyes met Kiyomasa’s directly. Kiyomasa’s eyes were red in a demon-like face, and he glared piercingly into her. Ryouko froze at this complete alteration, suddenly afraid.
“Ah—...”
Kiyomasa gripped her right hand.
At that moment, in those few seconds—
“...!”
Ryouko quickly regained her senses and realized that Kiyomasa was holding her hand. She slapped him hard.
“!”
Kiyomasa released her, breathing hard. Ryouko thrust him violently away, enraged. “Have you no shame!” she shouted, throwing the towel violently at him. She stomped out of the room.
Kiyomasa stared aghast at the door through which she had gone out, seemingly unaware of the pain in his cheek. He sat back down.
His contact mind-reading had allowed him to pilfer an enormous amount of information from Saeki Ryouko in just a few seconds—more, in fact, than Kiyomasa himself had anticipated. The information far exceeded his expectation in its fearsome, absolutely secret nature.
(Inconceivable...!) Kiyomasa stared, not even breathing.
His heart pounded loudly with the tempestuous and terrible information that had streamed into his head. Neither Ootomo nor Sassa could have known. Even the Aso family, which had possessed the skull, couldn’t have known...!
The enormity of it had stolen his voice.
(How could it be...) Kiyomasa went deathly pale. His fists shook. The impulse to scream was overwhelming. (How could such a thing be...?!)
He had to inform his lord, Nobunaga, right now. The true nature of the «Golden Serpent Head» was nothing so simple as the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent of legend. If Shimazu obtained such a thing, they would be in serious trouble! The whole of Japan, to say nothing of Kyuushuu...!
Could face destruction...!
(That must not happen!) Kiyomasa yelled inside his own mind. (I must inform Lord Nobunaga with the utmost dispatch!)
The red blazing heart of the logs in the fireplace crumbled with a thump. Briefly the flames wavered in extravagant motion, and against the wall the table’s shadow swayed with them.
The fireplace brightly illuminated Takaya’s profile. He was sitting up in bed, and had done so under his own power thanks to the healing of the luminous flame stone. Yet for some time now he had looked strange. His gaze was fixed unmovingly on a single point as he brooded.
He was motionless, his hands against his face. Only his eyes glinted through the crack between his fingers.
(What is this feeling...?) he moaned in his own mind, eyes wide, panting through a choked throat. (What is this fear?)
Gritting his teeth, Takaya desperately battled his own psyche. There was a monster standing in the way of his memories. Takaya probed tooth and nail into a self that was unable to approach his memories of the events at Hagi, even though they were certainly there.
He’d never even noticed until now. He’d unconsciously bypassed them without recognizing that anything was amiss. Why...?
(I’m afraid...!)
The closer he drew to those memories, the more his fear strengthened and loomed. He was choking, covered with sweat. Though overcome by terror, he desperately withstood the urge to scream and run madly away. He struggled forward with all his might.
“Naoe was shot.”
“A tornado of fire destroyed Hagi Castle...”
(I... can’t...)
He shut his eyes tightly, hands pressed against his head. In pain he shook it again and again.
(I can’t...remember...!)
Rairyuu’s facial scar. He was the one who’d burned it? He’d destroyed Hagi Castle? Shot by a gun? He couldn’t remember. When he tried, the pressure rose until he couldn’t breathe. Naoe had been with him all that time. And afterwards, they’d fought together on Itsuku Island...
(Where was he?)
He shivered, a chill running down his spine.
(Where was Naoe after that?)
The deep sense of unease loomed. What had Takaya himself done after Hagi? He asked determinedly, choking down the fear. He’d fought at the naval castle, but what had he been doing up until then?
How had he gotten there? How?
(I don’t know!)
Takaya bit his lip, repeatedly shaking his head.
(I can’t...remember...!)
“You have the power to see.”
(Is this what I have to see?)
Takaya panted wildly, hands sliding away.
(Is this it, Kaizaki?!)
The taste of blood filled his mouth from a cut on his lip. He swiped at it in surprise, and as he saw his fingertip, he jolted! Takaya jerked wildly.
“Aa...aah...!”
The monster resonated with the sight of the fresh blood. His heart squeezed with an even denser fear. Takaya tensed all over. His fists clenched in the sheets as he violently panted for help.
(No! I have to look...!)
He desperately opened his eyes.
(I have to see!)
What he wanted to know lay ahead. He could sense it even if he couldn’t see it. He mustn’t look away. Takaya hardened his gaze and glared into midair even as he trembled.
(Don’t run away...!)
A pressure so great it was driving him insane. A killing dread. The answer he must grasp was just ahead. He mustn’t retreat. He had to look.
With gritted teeth Takaya continued to battle alone.
No one could aid him in this battle.
How many hours had passed?
Snow continued to fall in the forest. It had grown very dark outside.
Flames in the fireplace danced against the window glass. The fire flickered, illuminating Takaya’s profile with an orange light. A shadow gazed at it from the room’s entrance.
It was Kikkawa Motoharu.
How long had he stood there? Motoharu continued to stare at Takaya with narrowed eyes.
(A frightful countenance...)
Takaya was haggard with his thoughts. He had the languishing look of a neurotic patient, his eyes fixed on a single point with the motionlessness of a statue. Only in the depth of his eyes was there a terrible glitter, that seemed capable of killing anyone who dared approach carelessly.
It doesn’t look human, Motoharu thought. Even a wild beast’s eyes would be mild by comparison. It was bloodcurdling— But even that was insufficient to describe that expression.
Takaya suddenly lifted his head as if sensing his presence.
He looked murderous.
(It’s overwhelming...)
A demon in human guise, Motoharu thought, taking a deep breath as if preparing to meet his fate. He approached.
“Here’s your school uniform. It’s been cleaned.”
He laid it to one side. Takaya was on his guard. He was filled with a terrible tension. He glared at Motoharu as if ready to sink his teeth into him at any moment. He was a totally different person than when he had just woken up. The menace in his eyes was even stronger than it had been in Hagi. Even the eyes of a starving beast were milder.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he tore out my throat.
Motoharu steeled himself and sat down in a chair.
“How do you feel? A little better?”
“...” Takaya didn’t answer. But his eyes said more than his mouth.
“Don’t look at me with those eyes. I am not your enemy. I only came to see how you were. The condition of your wounds.”
Takaya was silent. The spitting image of a wounded tiger.
That suffocating vigilance told of how close to the edge he had been driven after their conversation. He had been engaged with confronting the aberration within himself all this while. It was nothing so simple as frayed nerves. He seemed to respond to Motoharu’s every word and action with prickly menace.
Motoharu was slowly growing to understand Kagetora’s disposition. Just a short time ago he would have taken this threat at face value, been overwhelmed and flinched back...
Kagetora’s true feelings always ran counter to how he behaved. He was most belligerent when terrified.
“...”
He could understand Naoe’s feelings, Motoharu thought, exhaling quietly.
“I have always wanted to speak with you again.”
Takaya’s eyes didn’t soften at all.
Motoharu held his gaze.
“Neither of us were quite calm back then. I couldn’t truly understand you. If I said too much, I apologize,” Motoharu said sincerely. “May I speak of that time?”
“...”
Takaya had not relaxed at all from his painful vigilance. His lips were compressed tightly, and a challenging light glittered in his eyes. After a small pause, Motoharu began to speak.
“I lost my younger brother Takakage and nephew Terumoto in that battle. All my retainers died noble deaths in the Aki sea. You could very well say that Mouri was destroyed in that naval battle.”
‘The dead have gone to their rightful destinations, that is all’—is perhaps what you would say, but...
“But I was blessed to be able to have even a little more time with Takakage.”
“...”
“I learned that the bond between the two rivers was never severed,” Motoharu said, recalling his own final years.
After the death of their father Motonari, the Two Rivers of the Mouri had not always gotten along. Takakage had been the most brilliant among his brothers, excelling both in statesmanship and strategy. Among the Mouri almost all the most valiant and important victories were won by Takakage. Neither was he lacking in personal virtue. ...That was why their father Motonari had had both great confidence in and great expectations of him, and had entrusted Terumoto to Takakage’s care.
His was an existence that blossomed extraordinarily in every respect.
He had been chosen to be one of the Five Elders of Toyotomi’s administration. That was when the paths of the Two Rivers had diverged. Takakage had ridden the era’s zeitgeist and of his own volition formed an intimacy with Hideyoshi, thereafter steadily consolidating his power at Hideyoshi’s side. But fighting under that banner had not suited Motoharu, and he had chosen to retire and allow his son to take his place.
Motoharu had recognized a dark chord inside himself. He’d known for a long time that their father had expected more of Takakage, had loved him more. Motoharu had always felt himself somehow shrink in front of Takakage. He’d been resigned, had accepted his backseat role, had intended to be satisfied with his role; but the gulf between him and his brother had grown so great that Motoharu had begun to fear they could no longer fight together.
“The Two Rivers of the Mouri lost their shape after our father’s death...”
Takaya listened silently.
Motoharu smiled.
“I know, Takakage did nothing wrong. I grew an inferiority complex all on my own—sulked, distanced myself. Takakage was only living according to his strengths. He was right to do so.”
“...”
“He was right...and that was what made it so intolerable,” Motoharu said, shutting his eyes.
Takaya was silent.
But he never hated Takakage. In fact, when he lost the «Yami-Sengoku»-resurrected Takakage at the naval castle, he had hated Kagetora with all his heart. The once-lost Two Rivers had, even for a little time, been able to carry out their mission. Both of them had reaffirmed that the bond between their hearts had never been completely broken. Their resurrections had not been meaningless.
“And so...” Motoharu continued, “I feel as if I can understand Naoe’s feelings towards you.”
Takaya’s eyes softened the tiniest bit.
Not just Naoe, but Lady Tomo’s feelings as well.
Despite his sense of inferiority, he had never hated the one who had roused it in him.
To the contrary...that person had been precious to him—and that was what had made it unbearable.
“Those feelings in Tomo-hime sometimes burst past her limits. In Naoe’s case, those two sentiments were perhaps too finely purified into their conflicting essences.”
And then tragedy had struck.
They had driven each other into a hopeless corner.
What of Motoharu himself...?
“...”
He had fallen quiet, but Takaya continued to gaze at him. Takaya said nothing. It suddenly occurred to Motoharu that he had no understanding of something so beyond endurance. That was when he saw Takaya’s visage overlaid on top of his brother Takakage’s, and a mysterious fondness welled up inside him.
“I...Kagetora-dono.” Motoharu returned Takaya’s gaze directly. “This may be presumptuous of me to say, but in time I began to identify with Naoe. I regarded him as one who felt as I did, but with greater intensity and purity. And I wanted to see how far the two of you would go.”
No, ‘wanted to see’ wasn’t quite right...
Even if their end was intolerably repulsive, he didn’t want to look away.
In truth, Kagetora at Hagi Castle had been awe-inducing rather than repulsive or disgusting.
He’d said that all of Naoe belonged to him.
Motoharu recalled it clearly. He’d said that the man belonged to him completely. He alone had the right to decide whether Naoe lived or died. His memory...his history. He would allow no one else to touch him. Only his truth was needed. Kagetora had shouted the words with eyes that had looked mad.
He truly was mad, Motoharu thought. It was nothing so innocent as possessiveness or even the embodiment of it. He was a monster of possessiveness. To have been shown such a thing was maddening. What had horrified Motoharu had been that naked obsession.
People must not need so much. Not other people.
To want someone to need only you, intensely and for eternity, was...
Many people probably had similar desires to a greater or lesser extent. But they didn’t truly ask for such a thing— because everyone knew it was dangerous. Because if you could not obtain it, then your relationship to your destroyer would collapse. You lived your life skillfully taming such desires with reason, training yourself to not want more, using every trick in the book. Those who achieved such skill were called mature human beings.
“Do not misunderstand. This is not censure of you,” Motoharu quietly reassured the silent Takaya. “I was overwhelmed by your statement. Afterwards, thinking over what Naoe said, I acknowledge a single mistake. You are not unwise, only sincere. Good rapport requires earnestness from both parties. It is potent. You are very easy to revile. But I am overwhelmed by your strength, which is not intimidated by the purity of your emotions.”
“...”
“Perhaps it is your unnatural four hundred years that has made it so. But, Kagetora-dono...” Motoharu said, looking straight into Takaya’s eyes, “the fire with which you destroyed Hagi Castle—I believe I saw the true hell of people’s hearts within those flames.”
Takaya looked pained.
Motoharu gazed steadily at him.
He saw the sense of uneasiness and impatience return. Takaya looked down for a moment before finally...
“Do you...think I’m running away?”
It was the first time he had spoken.
Motoharu’s eyes widened.
“If what you say is correct, then does it mean I’m running away from reality?”
“Kagetora-dono.”
“Is that what you’re saying, Kikkawa Motoharu?”
Motoharu pressed his lips in a tight line, caught.
Takaya’s sharp gaze was fixed unwaveringly on Motoharu. Motoharu steeled himself once more in the face of this gravitas.
Without looking away, he nodded firmly.
Takaya’s eyes narrowed in pain. “...Then Naoe...?”
“...”
“What happened to Naoe?”
Motoharu’s expression turned hard. Takaya awaited his answer with distress. Motoharu told him unsparingly, “Can you not remember on your own, Kagetora-dono?”
“!” Takaya’s head jerked up as if pricked.
The thin line of Motoharu’s mouth loosened a little. Then he abruptly reached out and cupped Takaya’s cheeks with both large hands in an almost paternal fashion.
Takaya’s eyes widened.
“Listen well, Kagetora-dono.” He held Takaya’s gaze. “Naoe died that night.”
“...” Takaya stared at Motoharu, unblinking and motionless. There was no reproach in Motoharu’s tone; he was simply giving Takaya information.
“You must have realized this, if vaguely. It is the reason you cannot remember the events at Hagi and the true source of the fear in your heart.”
Takaya’s face froze as if he had struck a chord.
“You’ve been thinking about it all this while, haven’t you? That’s why you have such a pinched look on your face.”
Motoharu had seen through to the fact that Takaya had begun to doubt himself.
He was beginning to distrust himself. Could he have confidence in what he believed to be true? Or had it been fundamentally been infected with a lie?
Why was he so uneasy?
Takaya had been thinking since arriving here. Probing into the true cause of the surfacing strangeness which had caused him so much uneasiness since meeting Motoharu again. The unending circle of thoughts he’d experienced since meeting Kaizaki had appeared as well, exhausting him. That was what Motoharu had sensed from Takaya.
“It’s painful to be lost in a maze, isn’t it?” Motoharu said in low tones. “If you don’t extricate yourself, you continue to reject the answer that’s right in front of you.”
Takaya slowly shook his head from side to side. “Naoe...is at my side.”
“You think it’s Naoe, but it’s another person altogether. ...The shock of losing him...”
Takaya shook his head again.
“...Kagetora-dono.”
“That’s not true... Naoe has been with me all this while. For these past two years.”
“For this,” Motoharu peered quietly at Takaya’s face, “have you not borne many wounds you would otherwise not have taken?”
A small tear slid out of Takaya’s wide eyes and down his cheek.
“No...”
“Did you not wish to know the truth? To break out of the maze? Kagetora-dono.”
“No...!” Takaya shouted, pushed past his limits. “An answer like that is not an exit! I’m not trying to escape from reality! I’ve accepted even the fact that he’s lost interest in me...! I’m not listening to you!”
“I know you don’t want to see. But that’s precisely why your nightmare won’t end! Don’t you understand the crime you’re committing?! The true Naoe would never deny your pain; wouldn’t it hurt him too if you were hurt so badly?! Can you imagine how Naoe would feel were you to mistake the conduct of an imitation for the true him? There is nothing sadder; I’d rise from my grave! I don’t think you had self-interest in mind when you drove yourself mad, but so long as you continue, you’re betraying Naoe over and over again!”
“Shut up!”
“Listen to me, Kagetora-dono! All of this was brought about by your dependency. Your loneliness is something that must be borne by every living thing when it comes into the world. It is rooted in existence itself. You cannot escape it. Is escape not a lack of self-reliance? Tell me I’m wrong!”
“No! Stop it!”
“Kagetora-dono!”
“You’re always saying nonsensical things to lead me astray. Naoe was never going to join you! He died in my...!”
Motoharu caught his breath. Takaya stiffened, a hand moving softly to his lips.
“He died...in my—...”
“Kagetora-dono...!”
Takaya muttered hoarsely, eyes as wide as they would go. The image of those flames grew steadily clearer. Slowly the memories revived in his mind. Yes, these memories, Takaya thought. Memories of that time.
“Ah... aaa...aaaah!”
“Kagetora-dono!”
“Aaaah!”
“You mustn’t be deceived any longer, Kagetora-dono!”
“!” Motoharu reflexively turned to the sharp voice behind him. He hadn’t noticed the man entering. He was looking over at them, leaning against a wall. Motoharu shouted, “Kousaka-dono!”
“Kousaka...!” Takaya blurted out, face stiffening. “You...”
“It’s been a while, Kagetora-dono,” Kousaka Danjou replied in a low voice, his shapely and beguiling lips lifting.
Takaya came back to himself, filled with wariness once more. “You’re alive, then...?!”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you. I longed for your lovely face so much I’ve returned from the underworld. Can’t you be a little happier to see me?” Takaya only bared his teeth and glared. Kousaka looked fondly back at him. “...Heh! A cowardly tiger, as always. And you, Motoharu-dono, are being quite naughty. You mustn’t tell Kagetora-dono lies, you know.”
“Lies?!” Motoharu retorted sharply.
Kousaka slowly smiled and nodded. “Oh yes. No matter how tender-hearted you are, Motoharu-dono, you must not tell lies. That Naoe is dead, for example.”
“Wh...!” Takaya looked at Kousaka, stunned. “What...did you just...”
“Everything Motoharu-dono has told you is a lie, Kagetora-dono. You mustn’t believe him.” Motoharu didn’t know what Kousaka meant. A flash of Kousaka’s sharp gaze stopped his rebuttal. “Motoharu-dono, such clumsy falsehoods are no consolation. Your impulse to say that Naoe is dead out of your concern for Kagetora-dono is quite reasonable, but under these circumstances, to not know is the greater misfortune. You should tell him the plain truth, Motoharu-dono.”
“Kou...saka-dono... ...?”
Kousaka gave Motoharu an incomprehensible glance before focusing again on a shaken Takaya. He approached slowly and said in a pitying tone, “Naoe... has sold you out, Kagetora-dono.”
Chapter 15: Reveal of the Water-Mirror
“Naoe is not coming to save you, Kagetora-dono.”
Takaya was unable to immediately comprehend what Kousaka had said, but Kikkawa Motoharu reacted sharply. Is he really going to, said his expression.
“Kousaka-dono, You—”
“Naoe has forsaken you at last, Kagetora-dono,” Kousaka said loudly. “Do you still not understand? Naoe has betrayed you.”
Takaya was stunned. He stared mutely at Kousaka.
“Poor thing. Sold out by your retainer after four hundred years of marriage? I understand your incredulity, but to lie would only be a form of pity.”
“Sold me...out?” Takaya muttered hoarsely. “...Naoe has...?”
“Yes. The very same Naoe Nobutsuna who has been your trusted confidant for so long has sold you out and is begging for his own life.”
“!”
In quiet tones, Kousaka told the shocked Takaya pityingly, “You probably haven’t heard the news due to your infiltration of Kumamoto. ...Several days ago, Naoe was captured by our ally, Lord Shimazu Yoshihiro.”
“What...?”
“You sent Naoe to investigate the missing persons of the Himuka cult, I believe. I can tell you now that the Himuka cultists are allies of Lord Shimazu. Naoe’s persistent investigation placed him in the cross-hairs of Shimazu soldiers, and they caught him in the end.”
This was news to Takaya. Though he listened attentively, his expression was full of doubt. Kousaka continued in a low voice.
“Lord Shimazu intended to kill him immediately, but had an unexpected offer from Naoe.”
“...”
“He would give you up in return for his life. ...In other words, Kagetora-dono, he delivered you to Lord Shimazu. That was the offer Naoe made.”
Takaya was completely speechless. “...That’s impossible...”
“I believe Naoe met you a few days ago. The purpose of that meeting was to lead the Shimazu to your location, Kagetora-dono. ... As you well know, our ally Shimozuma Rairyuu-dono then attacked you, and when you lost consciousness we rescued you and brought you here. That’s the brief synopsis, in any case,” Kousaka finished smoothly with every conviction of truth and nary a stutter, though of course it was all fiction. He was such a master liar that he made it all sound plausible—as would be expected of a great strategist, perhaps. Even Motoharu was astonished.
Takaya had no basis for contradiction.
He’d turned deathly pale.
“That’s...a lie.”
“It’s not a lie. He is a despicable man. Besides, there was another reason for him to beg for his life.”
Takaya looked uneasily at him. Kousaka politely returned his gaze.
“Do you want to know about the Lady in White of Saga?”
“...What...?”
“From your reaction I see you know nothing about this. In that case, here’s what you should know: the one who destroyed the Lady in White you placed in Saga was not Oda or Ryuuzouji, to say nothing of Ootomo. ...It was this man you see before you, Kikkawa Motoharu-dono.”
“What...?” Takaya turned and looked up at Motoharu.
It was true.
Motoharu nodded gravely.
“Several days before your Lady in White was killed, Ryuuzouji Takanobu too was killed.”
“...!” This was news to Takaya. No report had reached him of this fact. “How did it happen?”
“Ootomo conspired with someone to assassinate him. Saga is Ryuuzouji’s territory; it would not have been easy for Ootomo to touch him there. Ryuuzouji’s movements were leaked to Ootomo. I can’t help but conclude that someone was doing Ootomo a favor.” Kousaka coldly concluded, “Your Ladies in White were lending Ootomo a hand.”
“That’s impossible...!” Takaya furiously refuted. “The Ladies in White would not act like that of their own volition! They can’t act without my command...!”
“What if they were commanded by Kenshin?”
Takaya paled. “By my father...?”
“Yes. If they had orders from Kenshin, the Ladies in White would obey.”
“No way...”
“Ryuuzouji Takanobu was killed by Uesugi soldiers. If it has not reached your ears, then they are concealing their actions. And then they invited Ootomo into Saga. In order to stop them, we and Kikkawa-dono exterminated the Ladies in White supporting Ootomo and cut them off at the root.”
The Ladies in White in Saga had been aiding Ootomo.
While Supreme Commander Kagetora knew nothing...
Takaya was completely incredulous. The Ladies in White acting outside of his orders had never once happened in four hundred years.
“It is concerning, but I’m afraid it’s true, Uesugi-dono,” Motoharu said, addressing Takaya in formal tones. “Kenshin is beginning to make his move.”
“Move...?”
“It’s as I told you before. Kenshin has abandoned you and created a new Uesugi army in order to realize his ambitions.”
“!”
Motoharu had said the same at Hagi Castle. The same dismay revived in Takaya’s chest. His face stiffened, and his lips trembled.
“That’s ridiculous...! But that’s...”
“Kenshin, it seems, has found you wanting when it comes to fulfilling his long-cherished desire. Perhaps he is unable to have complete confidence in you due to your Houjou origins.” Takaya was stunned. Kousaka continued mercilessly. “Naoe appears to have joined Kenshin.”
“!”
“This is what lay behind Naoe’s offer when he begged for his life. Naoe seems to have been working under Kenshin’s command when he clashed with Shimazu. It would have been inconvenient if you knew everything. Besides, Kenshin’s orders take precedence, and he couldn’t die before executing them. He weighed his life against that of a faithless master...”
Takaya caught his breath.
Kousaka looked at him.
“You can’t deny it, can you?”
“...” His pale lips trembled. His eyebrows drew together, his head jerked a little, and he beseeched, “Motoharu...”
Kikkawa Motoharu was silent. He could give no answer. Having understood Kousaka’s intention, he could only go along with the deception.
Takaya was violently agitated.
The word ‘faithless’ had buried itself deep in Takaya’s chest.
(He’s lost interest in me...) A Naoe whom Takaya’s heart’s no longer touched... (He’s...disappointed...)
“You must have suspected,” Kousaka said as if he’d read Takaya’s heart. “The enmity between you was obvious even two years ago, before Itsuku Island. I was quite worried it was always going to come to this even though it was none of my business.”
(True...)
He recalled Naoe’s cold expression.
That night in Hagi... But he was certain they’d managed to touch each other. No matter what enmity lay between them or how much their relationship had deteriorated, he’d been sure they’d grasped either other’s soul that night.
“For your...no, for our highest state of being!”
He’d thought they could seek it out. At least he’d thought they would try. But Naoe’s heart had never drawn near Takaya again. Even the wedge with which he had always tied Takaya to him had vanished, and Naoe had never again used the language of their innermost hearts. Even the screams and pleas on which he had wagered his entire soul had not reached Naoe’s. Had he touched no more than a phantom of his self-conceit?
Had Naoe given up? Had he lost the energy for interest? Or had his heart been charmed by another, so that Kagetora no longer held any fascination for him?
Had he finally decided to let Kagetora go...?
In the flames he’d truly thought they had touched each other, tuned each to the other so that they vibrated to the exact same pitch.
Had it all been illusion?
Had it all ended for them that night two years ago?
(Is that it...?)
Takaya saw nothing but darkness. Yet one sliver of hope remained to tell him that it was not quite over.
“It ended two years ago,” Kousaka concluded. “What a self-centered man. After tormenting you to such a degree, and then to leave you so abruptly—to trample on your heart like this... I sympathize, Kagetora-dono.”
“But—...” Takaya said tremblingly, touching a fingertip to his parched lips. But then, what was that? Bearing with it the hint of promise, that... “...that kiss. Why did he kiss me the other day...? He said he’d come to see me, and then...”
Motoharu’s eyes widened. Kousaka was unmoved; with a cynical expression he folded his arms.
“Probably...a ‘traitorous kiss’.”
“!” Takaya looked sharply up at Kousaka.
There was a thunk as pieces of firewalls collapsed in the fireplace. Red flames brightly illuminated the three occupants of the room.
The man who had sold out his master in order to preserve himself—his black shadow twisted within the flames.
Within Takaya, time stopped.
There was a tiny lull in the snow falling on Aso Valley. The night was about to grow much colder. The cedar trees around the main building of the Shinto shrine were draped with white garments.
At the foot of the northern rim of the Aso crater was Kokuzou Shrine [Regional Administrator Shrine] of Teno, Ichinomiya Town. Hayamikatama-no-mikoto, Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto’s son and first generation regional administrator of Aso, was enshrined there; this prestigious shrine was itself listed in the Engi-Shiki. The famous natural monument the ‘Giant Cedar of Teno’ was here, but after a calamitous typhoon a few years ago the tree was no longer its former majestic self; only the trunk with its chipped bark remained.
An ancient burial mound was located a little ways into the mountains past the shrine. It was a stone burial chamber in the tunnel tomb style, one of the many ancient mounds that dotted the northern outer rim. The inside was brightly illuminated by an electric light bulb.
Inaba Akemi was being held in its innermost chamber.
This was where Shimozuma Rairyuu and Shichiri Yorichika had brought her after kidnapping her.
Akemi was asleep stretched out on silk wadding within the sarcophagus, as still as the body she had displaced. Within the stone coffin was a layer of Bengal (a red powder used by artists), and so long as she was inside she would remain unconscious. This powder was created by burning Aso’s yellow ochre with spirit-fire, and was imbued with sleep-magic.
“...But she’ll simply stay asleep,” explained the guard and guide.
“Sleep without eating or drinking, which means in time her body will weaken and eventually waste away. If she’s not put on life-support, that is.”
“How long does she have left?”
The guard pondered the question with head tilted. “Well, let’s see. Maybe ten days or so.”
“I suppose whether she lives to wake up will depend on the Miike family and what they do with Asara-hime,” murmured the man in the trenchcoat. He added, “We’re done here,” and they left the tomb. The light went out.
The man descended the narrow hill road and retraced his steps to the main shrine building.
“We are as yet uncertain of Kagetora-dono’s welfare?” he asked Fuuma Kotarou, who was following half a step behind him. He took out his gloves and put them on.
“We are searching for him with all available resources,” Kotarou answered in a low voice. He’d been working with this man ever since leaving Takaya at the hotel yesterday: the companion of the man he’d met in the lobby yesterday. Kotarou had learned of Rairyuu’s attack on Takaya from him. He had hurried back to Kumamoto and rushed to the hospital there, but...
Only unbelievable news had awaited him there.
“Ougi-san has passed away.”
The body had already been taken away. After a full investigation by his subordinates, he’d learned that those who had abducted him were likely cultists of the Himuka.
He’d still been unable to make contact.
“Shimozuma Rairyuu is a troublesome fellow. I do not know what personal grudges he bears, but to disregard Kennyo-dono’s command and attempt to kill a likely ally like Kagetora-dono... It appears Kennyo-dono was greatly angered and has recalled Rairyuu from Kyuushuu.”
“Is that so?”
“I have heard Rairyuu is also bitterly opposed to joining forces with Shimazu.”
Which was not without cause. In the Edo period, Shimazu persecuted Hongan Temple followers even more than the early Japanese Christians. Rairyuu’s opposition and assertion that he couldn’t fight beside such people was perfectly understandable... The man in the trench coat looked over his shoulder at Kotarou.
“An alliance is necessary to bring down Oda. I need both Kennyo-dono and Shimazu-dono’s power. I intend to mediate between them as best as I can, but perhaps it would be best if they did not meet face-to-face. It was hellishly difficult to persuade Kennyo-dono. ...You’re in the same position, I believe.”
Rairyuu’s grudge towards Kagetora was no trifle thing. Mediation was close to impossible. Yet Kotarou’s heart was set. What had happened must never happen again. If Rairyuu was going to hurt Takaya—
(I’ll kill him.)
Was the man aware of Kotarou’s intentions?
He was silent, listening to the clear waters of the Miya River flowing past them.
They ascended the stone steps.
“Kotarou-sama!” A soldier rushed toward them. “We’ve found Lord Kagetora’s location!”
“So Saburou-dono is with Motoharu-sama?!” Fuuma Kotarou cried in what was for him an unusually loud voice.
Kotarou’s question was directed at Shimozuma Rairen. Though he’d died two years ago at Taishou Cave on the night of the Hagi incident, his windpipe crushed by a spirit-tiger’s jaws, he’d managed to change bodies and make his return. Kotarou had recognized him despite the change in appearance; it had been Rairen he’d met in the hotel previously.
“We just received word. Kagetora-dono is being looked after by Kikkawa-dono and Kousaka-dono. We know where they are. He’s wounded, but his life is not in danger.”
“Motoharu-dono is...?” Kotarou’s expression blanked as if in relief. “...That means the bird-people who saved Saburou-dono from Rairyuu-dono’s attack were...”
“Himuka cultists,” Rairen answered.
Of course it was common knowledge that Kousaka and Motoharu were communicating with the Himuka cultists with regard to the Kihachi matter, but they hadn’t been aware that the two parties were working together as well.
“Takeda and Kikkawa appear to be successfully colluding with the Himuka cultists. Of course we followers of the Ikkou Sect could not possibly do the same,” Rairen added chillingly.
Beside them, the man in the trench coat interrupted, “In any case, we can entrust Kagetora-dono to Kikkawa-dono while Kotarou-dono assists me with the capture of Kumamoto.”
“No, I must go to Saburou-dono.”
“There is no need. Please remain here, Kotarou-dono.”
“Why?” Kotarou demanded, suspicious of Rairen’s attempt to detain him. “Saburou-dono will think it strange if I do not go to help him. Right now he believes I am Naoe Nobutsuna. Naoe would not sit around doing nothing even if he did not know Saburou-dono’s whereabouts. If Saburou-dono is to return to the Houjou, he must trust me as Naoe. If I go to save him, he will believe more strongly than ever that I am Naoe.”
“...But there is no knowing how long we would have to wait to attain such a result.”
For a moment Kotarou was at a loss for words.
Rairen said coldly, “Takeda is using you as Naoe to break apart the Uesugi.”
Kotarou’s eyes widened. “What...?”
“I regret to say Takeda knows Kagetora-dono’s Achilles’ heel perfectly well.”
They were perfectly aware of Kagetora’s greatest vulnerability. They knew how to deal the most damaging blow possible to Kagetora’s sense of belonging to Uesugi. They knew how to drive him to the edge.
(If Naoe were to betray him...)
Kotarou understood what Rairen was saying. He knew well how obsessed Kagetora was with Naoe even if he couldn’t understand the emotion. He knew its intensity.
Kotarou becoming Naoe had damaged Kagetora, messed him up. He was filled with anxiety when he looked at this Naoe who refused to touch him, wondering if he was drawing away. If Naoe now deserted him in truth...
If Naoe really betrayed him...
He could easily imagine the trauma and despair Takaya would feel. It would finish him.
To be thrown over by Kenshin meant that Kagetora had lost the foundation of his raison d’être for these past four hundred years. The shock of it would be immeasurable.
If Naoe left him...the damage might well be the coup de grâce.
“Certainly Kagetora-dono is shaken,” Rairen said without hesitation. “Listen, Kotarou-dono. ‘Naoe has betrayed Kagetora.’ Therefore you must never show your face to Kagetora-dono again, let alone go to save him.”
“But I’m Saburou-dono’s...!”
“Yes. That is why you should return to being Fuuma Kotarou.”
Kotarou was dumbfounded.
“It would be simple,” Rairen said. “Kagetora currently recognizes Kotarou-dono as Naoe Nobutsuna, correct? So, if you were to possess another body, you would become ‘Fuuma Kotarou’ once more and serve Saburou-dono thus. There would be no difficulty.”
“...”
Did Rairen notice the iron mask of Kotarou’s expression stiffen as he spoke those words?
Such an expression would never have appeared on his face before. He would have accepted the logic of the strategy with the impassiveness of a robot.
Rairen had not yet noticed Kotarou’s transformation.
“I trust you would have done so even if I had not made the suggestion, Kotarou-dono. You are a brilliant leader of the ninja corps. You’ll take care of Saburou-dono, I’m sure.”
Rairen left the main shrine building along with his followers.
Kotarou’s face had turned white as a sheet. His clenched fists shook.
Only the man in the trench coat observed the unsettled robot.
The southern part of the area sandwiched between the cluster of Aso’s central volcanic cones was the South Country Valley [Nangou Valley]. Looking toward the ‘Shakyamuni entering nirvana’ of the Fives Peaks of Aso from this side, one could see the top of the head to the right and a slightly different sleeping figure.
Night had arrived in the South Valley Country.
Kaizaki and Hakkai had continued their search for Takaya after joining up in Tateno, but neither the Gohou Douji nor a telepathic probe had yielded any results—perhaps due to interference.
Aso was vast.
He’d traced Takaya’s response, but the location was imprecise. Now the obstruction was stronger, and using telepathy to find him was pretty much impossible.
“The jamming appears to be a sort of telepathic perturbation,” Kaizaki commented from the passenger seat of the four-wheel drive.
As a result Gohou Douji couldn’t spot Takaya either. The bell-ringing method was out as well. Was driving around haphazardly the only thing left?
“Mikuriya-sama is having her subordinates at Old Castle High School track down Kiyomasa starting from Katou Shrine—as we suspected, his trail ends in this area.”
“The missing Himuka cultists, then...?”
Kaizaki and company had already conducted their own independent investigation of the disappearances. They were nearly certain, based on testimonies from eye-witnesses and hospital staff as well as Mikuriya’s investigation, that these were the people who’d kidnapped Takaya and Kiyomasa.
(But why...?)
At this point Kaizaki and the other still had no knowledge of the connection between the Himuka cultists and Kousaka and Kikkawa Motoharu—let alone the Shimazu army.
They’d only noted Shimazu Iehisa’s existence.
(The Himuka cult... They seem to have some role in the Yami-Sengoku—...)
“But is this really something we should be doing?” Hakkai asked, his hands gripping the wheel. “Would it not be inconvenient if Ootomo were to be made aware that we are working to save Kagetora-sama?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll come up with an excuse,” Kaizaki brushed Hakkai’s concerns aside. “Besides, I am nothing but an exile from Satomi right now. I have nothing to do with Uesugi.”
“...”
Another of Hakkai’s worries remained: should the Supreme Commander himself really be running after Takaya like this?
(My only duty is to obey him.) Hakkai corrected himself, and turned his gaze forward. His four-wheel drive headed toward Hakusui Village [White Water Village]. Kaizaki appeared to have come up with a way to break through the obstruction.
The car arrived at Shirakawa Yoshimi Shrine. It was well-suited to the Shira River [White River] source.
Hakusui Village, abundant in spring water, was located at the source of Shira River, which flowed down into Kumamoto City. It was the most beautiful water in the entire country, and there were eight large sources and numerous small ones. This location could be called representative.
Hakkai and Kaizaki got out of the car, the murmur of the flowing water immediately reaching their ears. They entered into the depths of the forest. As expected, at this hour there was no sign of another human presence.
They came to the innermost shrine building, in front of which stood a pond of incredibly clear spring water. During the day one could see the lovely emerald gradations at its bottom, but unfortunately it was dark now. The pond reflected the darkness, its surface rippling slightly as it welled forth, while piles of snow quietly fluoresced.
There were steps to the pond’s rim, which led to a place where water was drawn. Kaizaki and Hakkai descended towards it.
“This water is full of spiritual power.” It was imbued with Aso’s mysterious power. “This is a good spot,” Kaizaki said.
“What are you planning to do?”
“Perform the water-mirror ritual.” Kaizaki quietly took off his gloves. "Use the underground water pulse to find him. Underground is the only place not affected by the telepathic perturbation.
Kaizaki ordered Hakkai to make preparations and extracted a paper doll prepared for this purpose from his breast pocket. On it he wrote the five Sanskrit characters representing the five rings for space, wind, fire, water, and earth: ‘ (kya) (ka) (ra) (ba) (a)’. With a brush prepared by Hakkai, he wrote Takaya’s name on the back of the doll. He then folded the corners of a piece of calligraphy paper together and drew on it the seed syllable for the guardian buddha of all directions. Chanting the mantra of Varuna, Kaizaki quietly set the piece of paper afloat on the pond. At the pond’s center, it suddenly glowed and dissolved. A blue light simultaneously filled the entire pond, and the symbol for the directions he had written earlier floated to the surface. The water rippled, and its north side bulged upward to form intricate peaks and valleys—exactly replicating Aso’s topography. The water had changed into a diorama of Aso.
Kaizaki continued to chant. Then he set the doll afloat on the glowing blue surface.
Then...
The doll instantly raced across the water’s surface towards the northwest. It sank halfway up a mountain and dissolved.
“That’s...”
It was about ten kilometers (~6.2 miles) to the northwest, halfway up Eboushi Peak.
The water sank into its usual flatness as soon as the doll dissolved. Now it changed into something like a mirror. Hakkai involuntarily cried out.
“Ah... !”
The pond’s surface had become a projection screen. A video gradually appeared. An outline emerged as if it were gradually gaining focus, until finally a person became recognizable.
“There he is...!”
It was him. It was Takaya. Though the image couldn’t be called clear by any measure, it was unmistakably him. He was in a room somewhere.
The water-mirror ritual was a type of magic that reflected a distant target object through the medium of water or other liquids. It worked with a bowl or a drop. If someone was reflected by water, their image could be transmitted to a distant water’s surface. They’d been lucky in the pitcher placed next to Takaya.
“Kagetora-sama...”
Kaizaki held Hakkai back as he involuntarily drew closer to the water’s surface. They’d lose the image if any foreign substance touched it. Hakkai hadn’t seen Takaya for a long time, and thus was perhaps all the more affected. He stared intently, not even breathing.
Takaya was sitting on a bed with his eyes cast downward. Though they’d heard he had been seriously injured, he now appeared to be healed—in body if not in spirit. He was too pale, his expression haggard.
(Takaya-san...)
Kaizaki bit his lip, feeling again that irritation at himself. Anger and impatience welled from his gut; the situation was unbearable. All of it was directed at himself: how could he have failed to protect Takaya? Allowed him to suffer like this? It was inexcusable of him.
At that moment.
As if sensing his presence, Takaya’s reflection looked straight at him.
They couldn’t communicate, of course. They could only look. Still, had he sensed that Kaizaki was looking at him?
Takaya’s gaze held shades of torment.
“...” Kaizaki shivered with a sudden chill.
He felt a deep foreboding.
Making up his mind, Kaizaki took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He concentrated, pressing his palms together and moving them up and down as if swinging a bell.
“Kaizaki-sama...”
With Hakkai watching attentively, Kaizaki chanted some kind of prayer—invoking the mysterious power of the enshrined deity of Yoshimi Shrine, Kuniryuu-myoujin—also known as Hikoyaimimi-no-mikoto. He was worshiped within Aso Shrine’s third shrine as one of the pillars of Aso’s founding. He was the son of Emperor Jimmu and father of the Lady of Aso City, who was wife to Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto.
A shimmering blue flame rose from Kaizaki’s body. Within the pond, the god’s power began to fuse with the power of the buddhas. Kaizaki opened his eyes.
“O God of Yoshimi, descend to this sacred pond and guide me to Ougi Takaya!”
The pond glowed.
The wind rose, and waves began to churn across the surface of the pond—then a whirlpool began to form with its center at the point where the paper doll had sunk earlier. A spherical blob of water bubbled up into the air and floated there.
Hakkai couldn’t believe his eyes.
The glass sculpture-like hovering mass of water freely changed shape. It stretched into a long narrow shape and became a snake.
A water snake, whose transparent body made it almost invisible in the darkness.
“Guide me to Ougi Takaya!”
As if in response to Kaizaki’s words, the water snake wriggled, sending waves through the pond. Its energetic movements brought it soaring over Kaizaki’s head.
“This water snake will guide us. Let’s go, Hakkai.”
“Ri...right!”
The spirit-snake made of Aso’s spring water flew through the air, leading the way. Water was their ally. Aso’s underground water had found Takaya’s aura and was guiding Kaizaki and Hakkai to him.
The car left the cluster of snow-blanket cedars behind and accelerated onward.
Snow began to fall from the ashen sky once more.
They sped along the highway after the water snake in the direction of Eboushi Peak as the car’s wipers flicked snow from the windshield.
“What do you mean, Kotarou-dono has disappeared!?” Rairen shouted in response to a subordinate’s report. The group gathered within Kokuzou Shrine’s residence area milled in confusion for a moment before venturing a response.
“Well...he looked to be in a rush and suddenly drove off alone earlier. We asked him where he was going, but he didn’t answer; he just left...!”
“Alone? Without saying anything?”
It made Rairen suspicious. There was something very strange in what his subordinates had told him. Kotarou’s subordinate Shichirou rushed over in answer to Rairen’s summons, but he too was in a state of agitation.
“Where did Kotarou go? What have you heard?!”
“I...!” Shichirou was just as surprised by Kotarou’s abrupt departure. “He said nothing to us! He forbade us to follow him! I don’t know what’s going on...!”
“Rairen-sama! Here’s someone who says that Kotarou-dono asked about Kikkawa-dono’s whereabouts...!” A sectarian reported in breathless haste.
“What...! Did you tell him?!”
“I—! He insisted...! I couldn’t refuse!”
“What is the meaning of this!”
Kotarou was a Houjou vassal as well as a key figure in the Anti-Oda Alliance. Had he gone to Motoharu? Kotarou could not be unaware of what that meant.
Rairen was rattled. He would never have imagined that Kotarou could act in a manner detrimental to his goal of returning Kagetora to the Houjou. What did it mean...!
“He has likely gone to join Kagetora-dono.”
“!”
He turned in surprise to the man in the trench coat, who was leaning against a pillar. Rairen’s breath stopped at this impossible reply.
“What did you just—what do you mean?”
“He’s gone to Kagetora-dono’s aid.”
“Aid...?! That’s ridiculous! There’s no need! Kagetora-dono is being protected with all courtesy! He knows that! Naoe has betrayed him!”
Rairen found it impossible to believe that Kotarou had turned his back on their plans. The man in the trench coat quietly shook his head.
“Rairen-dono, this ninja is no longer the Fuuma Kotarou you know.”
“That can’t be...”
Rairen couldn’t immediately accept the reality of the situation. Yet the other man seemed to have anticipated it. He calmed advised, “As a precaution, we should immediately send some men after him to prevent him from coming in contact with Kagetora-dono. If things come to a head...”
“...”
Rairen’s expression turned grave. He immediately summoned his subordinates and issued orders.
“Chase Kotarou-dono down! Find him and bring him back immediately!”
“Aye!”
They set off without delay. Rairen was still incredulous, but his expression eventually turned heavy.
(Could he really have...?)
“...” The man in the trench coat, standing apart, regarded him in silence.
His name was Akechi Mitsuhide.
This man, who had once betrayed and destroyed the Supreme Ruler, serenely turned his gaze toward the snow falling on the Five Peaks of Aso.
Chapter 16: White Tempest
That night, Katou Kiyomasa asked to see Takaya. At first, of course, he was flatly denied, but he was so strident and importunate that he left Himuka cultists quite stumped.
“I know he’s alive! I’m only asking to make sure my friend is safe!” Kiyomasa whined like a child. Perhaps fearing he would continue thus all night, the hapless cultists conveyed his request to Motoharu.
“What, Kiyomasa?” Motoharu thought in silence for a moment. “Very well.” He conceded to the visit on the condition that Kiyomasa would not try to speak to Takaya.
“Kagetora-dono was given a mood-stabilizer and sleeping pills earlier. He is probably deeply asleep; interaction will not be possible in any case.”
“Fine,” Kiyomasa responded, and was allowed to visit Takaya under the supervision of the Himuka cultists.
Motoharu heaved a deep melancholy sigh as they left the room.
(Kagetora-dono...)
He would not leave Motoharu’s mind.
After their conversation it was as if Takaya’s soul had left his body.
He simply sat there dazed and completely silent.
Motoharu had anticipated Takaya’s reaction to some extent, but had not expected it to go so far. Kousaka had left the room as soon as he’d had his say, but Motoharu had been so concerned for Takaya that he couldn’t do the same.
But no matter what he said, Takaya wouldn’t even look at him.
(He’s going to end up an invalid at this rate.)
The magnitude of Takaya’s shock worried Motoharu. Kousaka’s statements had dealt Takaya a shattering blow.
(And no wonder...)
Even though they were at war, this was cruel. A depressed Motoharu looked out the window. Guilt weighed heavily on him.
“It’s his own fault,” Kousaka had snorted along with a laugh—and it was true. Motoharu laid a hand on the cold glass.
These feelings were unbearable. He sighed deeply once again.
Takaya was asleep.
Kiyomasa had come out to his cabin with Himuka cultists watching him closely on either side.
There was less water in the pitcher—probably from the medicine Motoharu had half-forced him to take. Otherwise sleep would have been impossible.
At the entrance Kiyomasa was told to hold a piece of paper in his mouth to prevent him from saying anything.
“We can perceive telepathy, so don’t try,” he was warned.
“I know,” Kiyomasa responded curtly, and bit down on the piece of paper before approaching Takaya.
His sleeping breaths were inaudible.
(There’s no way we can make our escape like this...)
Kiyomasa sighed through his nose. What now?
He was pressed for time. Now that he knew the Himuka cultists and Kikkawa Motoharu’s strategy for the Shimazu side was built around Kihachi’s head, he couldn’t afford to lie around here at his leisure. ...But how could he escape? He couldn’t use «power» with the stringent surveillance around him. He needed some sort of opportunity, but the enemy wasn’t exactly volunteering any weaknesses to be exploited.
He’d thought he could use Kagetora to open up some sort of path, but... This was hopeless.
(Should I wait and see for a little longer?)
Besides, Kiyomasa couldn’t leave Kagetora behind. He was needed for Kihachi’s resurrection, and Kiyomasa couldn’t allow that to happen. Rather than leave him, he’d sooner—
(Kill him.)
But he could accomplish neither with the close watch being kept over him.
Kiyomasa studied Takaya’s sleeping face as he ruminated.
Takaya was defenseless.
(He is Lord Nobunaga’s greatest enemy.)
Of course, Kiyomasa thought.
He could know everything Kagetora knew. Such intelligence would surely be of greater value to Nobunaga than anything else. He could obtain all of Kagetora’s motives, calculations, and opinions, as well as Uesugi’s secrets. It would leave Uesugi naked. It would probably be the decisive blow against the troublesome Yasha-shuu. Nobunaga would be able to exploit such information to the fullest.
(Right. Let’s do this...)
Kiyomasa made up his mind. It would require a bit of preparation, but he was the only one who could do it.
(I’m going to read Uesugi Kagetora’s mind.)
Kiyomasa reached out toward the sleeping Takaya.
At the instant his fingertips touched Takaya’s shoulder—
“!” He cried out.
Beneath the blanket, Takaya’s hand seized Kiyomasa’s finger. Takaya opened his eyes to glare into his surprised face.
“Eek...!” Kiyomasa shrieked.
Takaya said within his mind, «Sh!». Kiyomasa thought his heart was going to jump out of chest. Takaya hadn’t been asleep. Perhaps he’d been aware of Kiyomasa’s visit. Or had he been waiting for this? He grasped Kiyomasa’s hand and said inside his mind, «Don’t make a sound. Just listen.»
(U...Uesugi-dono, you knew I was here?)
Kiyomasa received no response to his question. Their conversation was entirely one-sided. Takaya was using Kiyomasa’s mind-reading ability to communicate his intentions. Naturally he was keeping everything else closely guarded to prevent Kiyomasa from prying.
«I knew you were gonna try to read my mind. Sorry, man,» Takaya thought.
Kiyomasa pulled a face. So Kagetora was playing on a higher level, apparently. Kiyomasa wouldn’t get his way so easily. Takaya’s earlier daze was nowhere to be seen; he gazed directly and unwaveringly at Kiyomasa with the glint of challenge in his eyes.
He told Kiyomasa, «We’re getting outta here.»
(What...)
Kiyomasa’s eyes widened. Before he could even formulate the question, “How?”, Takaya had pressed on.
«I need your power. Do as I say. Destroy this building, and we’ll escape in the chaos.»
(Es...escape?! In your condition?)
Takaya had recovered a great deal with the help of the luminous flame stone, but he was still seriously wounded. He shouldn’t even be moving around, let alone trying to escape. Besides, they were inside a barrier, and getting out wouldn’t be such a simple matter. The close surveillance meant that they couldn’t use their «power», and they wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. This is impossible, he thought, but Takaya’s mind was already made up.
«I have a plan. Concentrate and read deep inside me. ...There’s something we can use for our escape.»
Place your hand on my chest, Takaya said. Mindful of the watchful eyes on him, Kiyomasa casually slipped his hand beneath the blanket. Takaya took it and guided it over his heart. He then laid his own hand on top of it, closed his eyes, and concentrated.
(What...)
Kiyomasa felt something hot beneath his hand. Takaya’s skin began to heat. He tensed all over, his brows contracting in pain. The heat traversed steadily from the depths of his body to his skin until at last...
(This is...!)
A hard stony object surfaced from Takaya’s chest. It left his body entirely and floated into the palm of Kiyomasa’s hand. It was a ruby-red regular octahedron: the luminous flame stone which the Himuka cultists had implanted in Takaya. It was a magical stone filled with spiritual power which only they could create, crystallized from the magma flowing beneath Aso.
Kiyomasa stared at Takaya with wide eyes. Its extraction required a considerable amount of power. Takaya panted, his forehead running with sweat, «I couldn’t have extracted it without your mind-reading ability. ...Take it.»
But without it, Takaya’s body was... His wounds were...
«I’ll tell you how, so do as I say. If you want to escape, help me.» Takaya’s piercing predator’s eyes allowed no room for disagreement. Nod if you understand, Takaya said. Kiyomasa nodded tensely. «Good...»
His gaze went to the entrance. Happily the Himuka cultists remained oblivious. Go, Takaya commanded. Kiyomasa turned on his heels with the luminous flame stone wrapped in his hand.
“All right, I’ve seen for myself that he’s fine. Let’s go.”
He glanced at Takaya over his shoulder and stepped out of the log cabin. Once he was sure everyone had left, Takaya heaved himself out of bed.
There were several guards posted outside. Kiyomasa and his escort looked up at the sky. It was past eleven p.m., and the middle of the forest was pitch dark.
“Let’s get back.”
Thus pressed by his escort, Kiyomasa walked along the forest path towards his own lodge. Himuka cultists hemmed him in on either side.
(All right, how do I do this...?)
Could he shake off his two guards?
(Is this really going to work—...?)
Though half in doubt, Kiyomasa decided to act according to Takaya’s instructions for the time being. About halfway down the path, he suddenly doubled up with his hands against his stomach.
“Wa...wait a moment. Ow, ow ow ow...”
“What’s wrong?!”
“My stomach...my stomach is hurting again.”
“Your stomach? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s been acting up. Did...did you bastards do something to my food?!”
“What?!”
“Oh...oh shit...” Kiyomasa clung to the Himuka cultists, half on the verge of tears. “It’s about to come out! I need...where’s the toilet...?!”
“The-the toilet?!”
“Ah... Shit! There’s no time, wait there a moment! I need to relieve myself!” He rushed into the bush in a pathetic panic.
What the hell?! The Himuka cultists grimaced in amazement and disgust. But Kiyomasa’s prodigious acting abilities had habituated them to his melodrama.
(Around there, then...?)
He squatted at the base of a tree and, taking care not to be noticed, took a wooden sword out of his pocket. He was still holding the luminous flame stone.
As Takaya had instructed, he used the sword to draw a charm over the stone: one that was unique to the Nichiren Sect, which used magic symbols as prayer to manifest various powers of Buddhism. Kiyomasa drew the symbol which would cause water to gush forth from underground. He chanted the nine-character charm and performed over it the ritual gestures to ward off evil.
The luminous flame stone began to glow faintly. Kiyomasa buried it at the base of the Japanese cedar, took up his wooden sword and string of prayer beads, and brought them clanging resonantly together, knowing the din would be ear-splitting.
“What?!” The cultists were startled by the piercing musical tone. “What are you doing?!” they bellowed.
An undaunted Kiyomasa yelled back: “Shut up! I’m performing an incantation to heal my stomach! You got a problem with that?!”
Probably thinking they couldn’t have Kiyomasa off somewhere doing weird things, they persuaded him to return to the main building.
(Is this enough, Uesugi-dono?)
All that was left was to wait for things to come to a head.
He could no longer sense people near him, and all was quiet once more.
Several minutes later, there was a soundless change. The ground around the buried luminous flame stone suddenly began to steam, and, over-saturated, turned to mud. Water welled up from underground. No, not just water: boiling-hot water.
Heated ash-colored mud collapsed into a sinkhole, which bubbled like some large living creature. The mud’s heated surface bulged into a hemisphere before bursting open. The entire area began to give off steam, and water welled from several more spots.
Snow melted.
Something was happening underground.
“What’s that?”
Kikkawa Motoharu was the first to sense the abnormality. He had left Takaya to the care of the Himuka cultists and returned to the main building with Enoki and company. Yet, unable to set aside his worry, he had descended to the ground floor on his way back to the annex.
That was when he noticed the offensive smell from outside.
“Do you smell sulfur?”
Enoki sniffed the air. “You’re right...”
There was an odd smell. Something often described as the scent of rotten eggs...or what you smelled when standing at the mouth of a volcano.
(Sulfur?)
No, this was volcanic gas...!
“Motoharu-sama, it’s sulphur dioxide gas!”
“What?!”
There was a violent tremor—then an almighty crash as if the mountain had exploded.
“!”
Outside!
Motoharu and Enoki shot out the door. Another fierce tremor assailed them.
“Waugh!”
The noise was intense, like dynamite going off. Motoharu saw mud geysers shooting high into the air around them.
“What is that?!”
“Motoharu-sama, the annex—!”
Takaya’s log cabin was blasted apart with a horrific bang. Motoharu and Enoki threw themselves to the ground as splinters of wood flew toward them.
“Kagetora-dono...!”
“Watch out, Motoharu-sama!”
Scorching mud rained incessantly down on them, and they howled in pain. Mud geysers in excess of 100 degrees [Celsius] began setting the trees on fire.
“What in the world...!”
Motoharu looked around incredulously. The Himuka cultists were in a panic.
“Don’t go outside! It’s raining burning mud! You’ll get burned!”
“Wa...augh...!”
A violent shaking traveled from the ground up to the house. Staying inside was no longer an option, and they tumbled out.
!
At which point geysers of mud explosively demolished the building.
“Graaaah!”
The cultists ran around trying to escape the mud raining down on them. The geysers gushed ceaselessly. Kiyomasa dashed off in the midst of the confusion.
“Uesugi-dono! Uesugi-donooo!”
Takaya was next to the pieces of the log cabin, wearing his school uniform. His clothes were smeared with mud, but he seemed fine otherwise. Cold sweat stood out on his forehead from the pain of his wounds. Jaws clenched, Takaya turned.
“Looks like it went well.”
The powers of the luminous flame stone and charm had combined to stimulate underground volcanic gases. The geysers of boiling water had thrown the area into chaos. Though he felt rather guilty towards Motoharu, he had managed all this by once again using the volcano’s energy.
But did Takaya have enough stamina to escape?
“Running in your condition is too reckless, Uesugi-dono!”
“It’s not reckless. Let’s go, Kiyomasa!”
Overwhelmed by Takaya’s drive, Kiyomasa chased after him. Takaya was implacable in his determination to escape. But Motoharu and the others spotted them almost as soon as they stepped into the forest.
“What?! Kiyomasa and Kagetora have...!”
Motoharu looked up balefully at the eruptions of scorching mud. Only Kagetora could have done this. Motoharu knew this was his doing.
(This is reckless...!)
Trying to escape in his condition was suicide. With his injuries, he should be resting in bed for two, three weeks. If he was not careful, he could die. Motoharu was suddenly stricken by an unpleasant thought.
(It can’t be...!) Motoharu whipped around. (Or is he really trying to get himself killed?!)
“Motoharu-sama! It’s too dangerous to remain here!” Enoki and the others shouted, rushing up to him.
Motoharu yelled, his face white with anger, “Don’t worry about me; find Kagetora-dono! He can’t have gone far!”
“Has he escaped?!”
“Kagetora did this! You need to track him down immediately! If you don’t bring him back quickly, he’ll die!”
“Die?! What about Kiyomasa?!”
“Don’t worry about Kiyomasa! Deal with him when you find him!”
“Right!”
Enoki issued his orders in defiance of the scorching mud. The bird-people’s panic subsided. They regained their senses, and their expressions changed. As they concentrated, they began to glow with a golden aura. Then they launched themselves into the air, once again manifesting their flying abilities.
Trees were going up in flames, and the brightly-lit night took Motoharu back to Hagi.
(He doesn’t have a chance.)
How was he going to escape in his condition? It wasn’t even suicide; it was mad.
(We have to bring him back!)
«Nue» of Ootomo onshou wandered the area. What would they do to him if they found him? Even aside from that, he was hanging to life by a thread.
(I can’t believe he did this...!)
He can’t be saved, Motoharu thought. Was this his final struggle? And yet he’d escaped?!
(Kagetora-dono!)
Kiyomasa and Takaya had advanced through the deep forest and were heading for the foot of the mountain with single-minded determination. They were out of sight of the blaze, and were surrounded by pitch blackness. There was no path. There was only the white of snow drifts to guide them. They panted as they descended.
“Uesugi-dono...!”
Takaya was falling behind. Not surprisingly, his stamina was flagging badly. He staggered from tree trunk to tree trunk as he heaved for breath, hunched over protectively.
“Stop looking over your shoulder...” he said, pained, his eyes flashing sharply in the darkness. “I’m a burden to you; leave me behind...”
“But you...!”
“You’re my enemy!” Takaya’s words were still full of teeth. But his face was bloodless, and cold sweat ran from his brow. He was in considerable pain from the loss of the luminous flame stone’s support. “Or do you see this as a wonderful chance to kill me...bring Nobunaga my scalp?!”
“I told you trying to escape in your condition was stupid! I’ll carry you!”
“Don’t touch me!” Kiyomasa snatched back his hand at Takaya’s sharp rebuke. Takaya was a wounded beast. “Stay away from me! If you touch me I’ll kill you!”
“...”
Daunted by his cornered desperation, Kiyomasa gulped. He couldn’t gainsay Takaya.
At that moment.
“!”
A large flock of black shadows dropped down from the trees above: The Himuka bird-people.
“There you are!”
“Seize them!”
Feh! Kiyomasa tsked. He took out his wooden sword and prayer beads. “I’ll hold them back! Run, Kagetora!”
“Kiyomasa...!”
“Shut up! I can’t let them take you! I can’t let them make you Kihachi’s vessel!” Kiyomasa stood protectively in front of Takaya. “Don’t get me wrong, Kagetora! I’m telling you this for Oda’s sake! The «Golden Serpent Head» isn’t the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent—it’s something much more terrible, and you’re to be its vessel! They’re planning to make you a puppet responsive to Kihachi’s will! I’m not gonna let Uesugi Kagetora become the residence of the Kihachi onryou swarm!”
“Kihachi onryou...swarm?”
“Now that you know, hurry up and get moving!”
Impelled forward by Kiyomasa’s bellowing, Takaya whirled.
Saeki yelled from overhead, “Chase Ougi Takaya down! Finish Kiyomasa off!”
“As if you could!”
A fireball ignited in Kiyomasa’s right hand. It lengthened into a large half-sickle spear. Charged with his fighting spirit, the characters ‘Glory to the Lotus Sutra’ flowed down its length in glowing gold.
“Graaah—!”
Kiyomasa hurled the spear toward the bird-people chasing after Takaya. It flew howling through the air and exploded in front of the bird-people, barring their way.
“Gah!”
“Yasuo!”
Those hit by the impact slammed into the ground. Saeki sent her will into Kiyomasa’s luminous flame stone.
“Aaaaugh!”
His chest heated as if it was on fire. The others also shot luminous flame stone at the anguished Kiyomasa. This was what had driven Rairyuu away.
“Graaah!” Kiyomasa held his wooden sword aloft. “Don’t you dare underestimate me!”
A ringing tone thundered from the sword as he clanged it with all his might.
“What?!”
The arrows of luminous flame stone were repelled by the wall created by Kiyomasa’s sword as he desperately clashed it against his beads. Saeki tsked and urged her cohorts to press the attack.
“What, are we to be defeated by this?! We are the people of Himuka! All who stand in our way must be destroyed!”
“Guh!”
The attack grew fiercer. Kiyomasa made his sword ring out like fury, but arrows of luminous flame stone rained down like hail, and several broke through his wall to pierce into him. Blood spurted. His heart was burning! Kiyomasa set his teeth.
“Daaamn yooou—!” he howled, manifesting his spear once more.
“You think I’d give Japan up to Kihachi’s tribe?!”
(I have to help him...!)
Fuuma Kotarou raced across the dark mountain toward Kikkawa Motoharu’s abode. His footing was slippery with snow, but that mattered little to Hakone-reared Kotarou. His eyes were fixed intently on the path ahead. His only goal was to rescue Takaya from Motoharu and Shimazu.
(I have to get to Saburou-dono... No, Kagetora-sama!)
That was his only thought.
From a ‘strategic validity’ standpoint, his actions were unfavorable from every angle. The Kousaka-Rairen scheme of making Kagetora think Naoe had sold him out should have had Kotarou’s whole-hearted backing.
But Kotarou was incapable of it. Naoe was not someone who could ever sell Kagetora out.
(I haven’t betrayed you.) Kotarou raced through the forest. (I would never sell you out,) he beseeched. Desperately trying to vindicate himself, Kotarou charged forward.
“Don’t you feel anything?”
Bound by the spell of those words, Kotarou had transformed into some other ‘Fuuma Kotarou’.
“Have you even forgotten...how to kiss?”
He had gotten his priorities backwards. Kotarou would do anything to return Kagetora to the Houjou, but he had sidestepped the first principle. He had brooded over becoming Naoe to the point of believing himself to be the true Naoe.
He couldn’t judge what he didn’t notice.
He could not be calm. He did not know the true shape of the impatience that tore into his chest. In ignorance, he ran. He was oblivious. This was nothing so simple as an inferiority complex towards his imagined Naoe. It concerned his own personality, somewhere deep inside...
“You could never understand!”
Ujiteru’s words echoed in his heart. At the time they had been simple nonsense. He‘d privately dubbed Ujiteru a fool for refusing to sacrifice Takaya’s fleshly shell due to mere sentiment. His words had found no sympathy with Kotarou, no echo in his heart; he’d felt nothing. He’d interpreted that lack as a proof of his own ’perfection’.
But wasn’t it simply a lack of an echoing apparatus in himself?
Far from being a ‘perfect human being’, didn’t this mean he was a ‘defective human being’?
That was how Kotarou had started to feel while playing the role of Naoe with Takaya. A frustration had grown day by day that had repeatedly shaken him to his roots. Takaya’s wholesale renunciation of him had reduced him to all-consuming confusion as he had slowly lost his bearings.
Kotarou had at last lost sight of himself and his own identity.
He ran mutely through the snow-covered mountain. He could sense Takaya calling for help from the other side of that ridge.
“I could never understand you!”
Takaya had said those words to him at Hagi. Thinking back, it had been the first spell.
Takaya was the one driving him into a corner. Takaya was the one who repudiated him, but he was also the only person who could affirm him.
More than by being Houjou Saburou. More than by returning to the Houjou.
(I have to mean something to you!)
Kotarou raced forward. His desperation looked like nothing so much as fear.
The way ahead opened onto a path. At that moment, he heard the sound of an explosion from somewhere in the far distance.
(What was...?!)
The reality of the tremors beneath his feet returned Kotarou to his senses, and he stared tensely forward. Rumble... The earth shuddered and moaned in broken contractions. The thunderous roar of scorching mud shooting into the air reached even him.
(That was...!)
He was certain. It had come from the direction of Motoharu’s residence.
(Could it be?)
Kotarou’s perception sharpened. He slid and ran down the steep forest slope between trees towards the sound. The ground rumbled. There was another explosion, and the ridge suddenly burst into light. Flames roared skyward.
(There!)
That was Motoharu’s compound—where Takaya was. This rumbling, these explosions. Something extraordinary was happening. Kotarou ran straight towards the burning ridge.
Kotarou couldn’t immediately figure out what was happening, but he knew it was Takaya’s doing.
Had he acted, unable to wait for help? Or had he broken through after concluding that help was not coming?
(That’s not true, Kagetora-sama!) he yelled as he charged forward. Help is coming. I’m coming to save you. Don’t rush into anything...!
Kotarou bounded across bare black rock like a wild deer. He had to find Takaya first, to protect him. If he had acted out of the mistaken belief that Naoe had betrayed him, Kotarou had to set him straight. He had to tell Takaya he’d come to help him, that his betrayal had been a lie!
“!”
Sensing strong spirits in his path, Kotarou reflexively went on the defensive.
The metallic clash of armor approached.
(What...?!)
Pale will-o’-the-wisps appeared, dotting the cedar forest. These ghosts slowly manifested themselves. It was a group of warriors in dilapidated armor.
(They’re...!)
Each unsheathed his sword and advanced on him with armor creaking. Kotarou drew in «power» and readied himself for battle. Then a man appeared from behind the spirits.
“I cannot allow you to proceed, Kotarou-dono.”
“! What...?!”
The man in the white overcoat held a sword in his right hand. He was a possessor spirit: the master of these onryou. He faced Kotarou.
“My name is Shimazu. Shimazu Toyohisa. I was asked by Akechi-dono to stop you. If you will not submit, then you are no longer our ally. ...Prepare yourself!”
(Shimazu Toyohisa...!)
He was the son of Yoshihisa, the eldest of the four Shimazu brothers1. During the famous Battle of Sekigahara, Shimazu had attempted a daring tactic to break through enemy encirclement in order to evacuate from the front. Toyohisa had died in his uncle General Shimazu Yoshihiro’s place during the maneuver.
He had rushed here at the head of a group of soldiers in answer to Mitsuhide’s appeal.
(He’s here to stop me?!)
Kotarou’s eyes flashed as he braced himself, beast-like. Shimazu’s onryou pressed closer, moving to encircle him. Kotarou gritted his teeth painfully.
(Saburou-dono...!)
“!”
The thunderous roar also reached Kaizaki and Hakkai inside their car. Guided by the water snake, they were driving on the mountain road toward Eboushi Peak.
“Wh-what was that?!” Even in the car they felt the tremors. The explosions continued. Steering with care, Hakkai turned to Kaizaki. “Could that have been...!”
“We need to hurry,” Kaizaki commanded sharply. “That was a magical surge originating from a spell. Kiyomasa is a member of the Nichiren Sect. As one of their most ardent believers, I’m not surprised he can wield such power.”
“Then Kagetora-sama is...!”
The car gathered speed as it ascended the zigzagging mountain road until finally they came to a place where the paved road came to an end just before a very steep slope. They plunged forward, four-wheel drive fully engaged.
“!”
The area was already mired in scorching mud spouting up from underground.
“Wh...what is going on?!”
There was no possible approach. Burning trees had become pillars of fire while the demolished log cabins were already buried under the mud; it was impossible to tell what had happened. Dense steam shrouded the scene. Here and there geysers of mud continued to explode from the ground. Hakkai covered his nose. A dense hazardous volcanic smog overlaid everything. They couldn’t stay long or they would fall prey to the toxic air.
“Ka...Kaizaki-sama...”
Kaizaki grimly surveyed the dismal scene. Everyone seemed to have already disappeared. There was no trace of Takaya.
(Takaya-san...!)
“I see our guest has finally arrived,” said a voice at their back.
“!” They turned.
(I know that voice...!)
A human shadow approached from the other side of the water vapor shroud. The white clouds parted as if opening a path for him. From the depths of the forest he came: a beautiful man in a white coat...
“!” Kaizaki caught his breath.
It was unmistakably Takeda Shingen’s confidant, Kousaka Danjou.
“You took your time,” Kousaka pronounced, slowly drawing closer. His voice, too, was beautiful. He smiled audaciously as hellish volcanic gases thinned and disappeared in the small space around him.
“You bastard...! So you’re alive!”
“That’s a fine thing to say. ...When it’s been ages since we saw each other last.” Kaizaki glared daggers at him. Kousaka snorted a laugh and lifted nimble fingers to his chin. “That face—you’re as much a coward as ever. So you’re just going to borrow someone else’s body while hiding your true self away? Hmph, what a fool.”
Kaizaki squared off against him and responded in a low voice, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Leave off. I have no interest in a poser’s puppet drama. The spirit-wave that’s been screeching in my ears since earlier has been annoying enough. I can see that puppet’s strings.” Kaizaki’s face stiffened. Kousaka laughed with malicious amusement. “It’s always been your drama, of course—a three-penny drama.”
“You bastard!”
“It’s clever of you to have synchronized with another person. But I have no interest in a stand-in. If I wanted I could cut your strings.”
His statement agitated Hakkai extremely. Kaizaki scowled fiercely at his opponent.
Kousaka laughed again and said loudly, “Looks like even Yama of Hell didn’t want to deal with you! Well done on coming back to life! Welcome to your resurrection, Naoe Nobutsuna!”
Wind blew as the blaze behind him flared ever higher. Water vapor billowed against them and turned their field of view pure white.
Within the white tempest the two adversaries faced off once more.
Chapter 17: Atonement
How long had he been walking?
His own footsteps and harsh panting filled his ears.
He could not seem to reach the end of this deep dense mountain forest. Favoring his injuries, he desperately continued his trek. He thought of nothing but getting as far away from this place as possible.
The bird-people had not come after him. They seemed to have lost his trail. But Takaya didn’t have the slightest idea where he was.
(Where am I...?)
He was completely lost. It was pitch black. He tripped over countless roots. The ground was slippery with snow. Had there been something like an ancient mudslide here? Boulders big and small obstructed his path. To negotiate both them and the sharp incline was not at all easy for his battered body.
Takaya dragged himself forward.
The mountain forest looked the same everywhere, and with the snow piling up, it felt as if he were walking in place. He didn’t have the slightest idea where he was, or how far he had traveled—probably not that far, given his pace.
“!”
His foot suddenly slipped. Takaya slid about five meters down the slope.
“Guh...!”
Clinging to a tree root, he somehow managed to raise himself. He panted wildly for breath. He had already gone beyond the limits of his stamina. He had no strength left to stand, and simply sat there looking upward.
He stared up at the sky, gasping.
He could see a sliver of black sky through the dense treetops.
(I can’t...walk any further...) he thought dazedly, his consciousness dimming. His wounds were troubling him; his lungs screamed every time he shifted. His limbs were so heavy they didn’t feel like they belonged to him, and lay inanimate on the ground.
The tree trunk was slippery with frost.
It was a cold night. The snow had stopped a while ago. Instead, the crisp mountain air pierced into his lungs. His drying sweat was robbing him of even more body heat, and the night was turning much colder. His fingertips were completely chilled; he wasn’t going to survive out here in his thin school uniform. He didn’t know if he could even reach the foot of the mountain in his state.
...He had reached his limit.
Takaya closed his eyes in resignation.
He’d been reckless.
He knew his own condition better than anyone else. Even someone in the best of health should not underestimate these mountains at night. He’d known that trying to escape through the mountain in his condition was life-threatening even if everything had gone his way. Certainly under normal circumstances he would not have made such a decision.
He’d had no time to think of the consequences.
(Am I going to die of exposure out here...?) he wondered hazily. An unfelt smile creased his tired cheeks. He gurgled with laughter. What a situation he’d landed himself in. It was too ridiculous, too stupid—he had to laugh.
Looking up at the night sky, he felt oddly nostalgic. He’d laughed at his own stupidity like this before in just the same way. When had that been?
(Second year of junior high...)
He’d been wandering around town, unable to go home because his father had been in the middle of a drunken frenzy.
That night had been just as cold as this one. The can of coffee he’d bought at a vending machine had been the only thing warming his cold hand. There’d been no place for him at home or on the bustling streets, so he’d spent all night crouched in the cold wind in a dark corner of a raw materials storehouse.
The cigarettes he’d smoked had been awful.
It had been a freezing night, and he’d been hungry. He’d been cold in both mind and body. ...How wretched he’d been.
He hadn’t thought that running away from home would be so miserable. He’d surely die of exposure by morning. And he’d laughed.
Reflecting on his pathetic and wretched state, his unsightliness and helplessness, he’d buried his face in his sleeves and quivered with laughter.
(Nothing’s changed...)
He was feeling the exact same feelings now.
Only five short years had passed since that night, but he had the feeling, when he looked over his shoulder, that he’d come a long way. Yet, dying of exposure here in the Aso mountains, he also felt as if he had not changed at all.
Even if he no longer had a hot canned coffee or a cheap knife in his pocket...
“Ugh...!”
His movements shot pain right to his head. Panting, Takaya leaned back against the tree. His field of vision blurred. His consciousness dimmed. His entire body felt sluggish and heavy. ...Was he really going to die here, then? He had no defiance left in him.
His exhausted eyes slid shut.
He lifted his head to the sky.
He couldn’t even cry...
He’d driven himself to escape. The situation he now found himself in was not wholly unexpected. It was obvious that nobody in his physical condition could escape this midwinter mountain forest. He’d been reckless. He knew that.
(I knew it, but...) His lips parted a little. (It’s time... to stop.)
Let me stop. ...All of this.
It had been meaningless after all.
What could he call it but meaningless? It was nobody’s fault but his own. He was the one who had invited this hopeless conclusion by allowing himself to depend on other people.
“You’re finished.”
Words he had not wanted to accept...
“Living things have always tried to escape the loneliness they must carry.”
(I know that very well—...) Takaya muttered like an starveling bird. (I know very well that I can’t regain what I’ve lost...)
It was no one’s fault.
He was always the origin and the cause. No one was to blame.
I know that very well. That’s why...
How much anguish and grief he had caused Naoe. How meaningless were his childish demonstrations, how criminal his meanness.
He’d lived in vigilance and fear, ever guarded against the possibility that someone would see through his powerlessness. All his ugly intimation was the underside of his fear of the world.
Never had anyone made so little progress over such a long period of time...
(Even though I’ve lived four hundred years.)
It was so disgusting it was comical.
His true self was the absurd king of a fairy-tale who, intoxicated with a few words of praise, never noticed that everyone was laughing at him behind his back.
But in reality the king always knew. Would there one day appear someone who would expose his blunders? Humiliate him for all to see? He lived in constant fear.
He feared people discovering that he couldn’t live up to his reputation, that his supposed power was a pretense. He‘d grown so self-complacent on others’ charismatic view of him that he no longer knew his own place if he was not worshiped. That was the kind of person he was.
That was how he knew what kind of person had ‘true charisma’. It was someone without artifice. Disappointment could not flatten such a person. Perhaps such a selfless person could obtain the sympathy and pure adoration of others.
Though he didn’t know much about the world, he knew that his own charisma was fake. That was why he forever anticipated exposure followed by disillusionment. He worried about being exposed by those who knew true charisma—so much so that he couldn’t sleep soundly at night.
Because he was a coward, even the least criticism bothered him, terrorized him. He was excessively self-consciousness of his inferiority complex, and he regarded anyone who so much as touched on his sense of shame with wariness and rancor.
Because he couldn’t form a relationship with anyone but those who were interested in him, he couldn’t broaden his own circle. His passiveness caused everyone to leave him in exasperation after a while.
He was unable to form proper human relationships, as Naoe had pointed out.
(It’s true. I’m a nutcase...)
Look at how far he’d gone to continue winning in order to tie one person to him.
And to want such a relationship to be ‘omnipresent’—it was unnatural and absurd. A normal, decent human being wouldn’t even think of it.
(I am not normal...)
Takaya lifted his dark brown eyes to gaze up at the night-cloaked top of the tree as he reflected on the roots of his inferiority complex. The darkness was so complete that he saw no stars.
He’d worked so hard to get here.
How could he live the normal life of a decent person? He was forever searching for a way, trying his hardest, but it never went well, and the impatience and anxiety and self-hatred would intensify.
(...I wanted to be someone like you.)
To be able to stand on equal footing with many people, like him. That kind of person.
All he’d wanted was to be such a person.
All he wanted with his four hundred years was to be a normal person.
Alas, all his circumstances had pushed him towards emotional dependence, and he’d lost himself to pleasure. He hadn’t had the courage to take the plunge to improve himself and step out from the shadow of this servile pride.
Then, upon obtaining this body, he had squandered his chance at a fresh start, though it had been presented to him on a silver platter.
Rather, he’d steadily pushed them both towards the worst possible outcome.
Look now.
This was the result.
(I know that...very well.)
That someone like him couldn’t be saved...
I’m not worthy of your love. I never was.
(I was the one trying to hold you back...)
Takaya leaned his cold tired body against the tree.
He found Naoe’s honesty beautiful. It was proudly genuine. There must be many who desired him. How arrogant it had made him to have someone like that look only at him.
...He’d lost it all.
He could now only curse his own folly.
He had no more energy...
Snow began to fall.
White snow swirled down from the high gaps in the tops of the surrounding trees. Takaya stretched out his trembling fingers to catch the flakes.
They dissolved into ice water.
The cold began to leech away his body warmth. Even the tips of his toes grew numb with cold. He shook. When he went limp, his teeth began to clatter. Hugging himself, Takaya crouched.
As snow fell, the Aso mountains grew much colder.
The bird-people didn’t seem to be coming after him. Had Kiyomasa defeated them all? What had happened to him? Would he go to Nobunaga?
What about Motoharu? Kousaka?
Would they send someone after him? He couldn’t possibly reach the foot of the mountain, but he also probably wouldn’t be found until morning. Even if they did find him, (I can’t...move...)
The snow falling thick and fast covered the surrounding area in a blanket of white.
He heard not a single sound. ...The silence was so profound it hurt the ears.
He felt as if he were listening to the mountain’s slumbering breaths.
The mountain was a living thing. In fact, its red-hot blood was pooled beneath him.
This was a spot naturally close to the wild essence of the earth. The spurting gases and the hot magma were the earth’s blood... They had formed these savage hills over hundreds of millions of years...
White snow fell.
Takaya gazed almost fondly at the scene.
(That’s right...)
His past self had died here in Aso.
Takaya closed his eyes.
He forbade himself from remembering.
That last battle had unfolded in Aso. His power had clashed with Nobunaga’s «hakonha» head-on. The massive explosion had triggered the Middle Peak’s eruption, and his body had been sent flying by a force strong enough to level a mountain.
Naoe’s child had...
In its womb...
As if to feel again what he’d felt then, Takaya tilted his head upward and placed a hand on his belly. Beneath his closed eyelids, he saw her.
(Minako...)
The Maria who had eased his thirst with the water of tranquility.
The woman who had forgiven his entire existence with her motherly love. Who had simply and silently forgiven his hopeless dishonesty and cowardice.
Her smile had been a gentle light full of the Virgin Mary’s affection.
Beloved Minako...
She’d forgiven his sins.
It was not Naoe who was cruelest to you, nor anyone else.
It was me.
“You alone I will never forgive!”
He’d heard that those words had never stopped tormenting Naoe.
Yet they were false.
The one he couldn’t forgive wasn’t Naoe.
Nor her. She’d been a victim of himself and Naoe...no, of his own hopelessly villainous heart. She’d been his victim.
Haruie had been the first to learn of the abject reality of those events. Several months after their parting, she had gone to meet them. That was when she detected the change in Minako’s body. She questioned Minako closely, but even so Minako intended to keep it a secret from Kagetora. A grimly determined Haruie told Kagetora.
“Stay calm and listen, Kagetora.”
He’d been filled with a violent fury towards Naoe, demoniacally combined with a dark desire in the innermost depths of his heart. He now held Naoe completely in his hand. He finally owned all of him. He had subconsciously calculated and plotted and fulfilled his forbidden desire; the intoxication of that reality staggered him. Naoe had committed the crime for him. The ultimate crime of raping the Virgin Mary.
He’d known that he was the greater evil.
Everything that followed had been his punishment.
It didn’t matter that it was Naoe’s power that had killed her. Naoe had done it so he could survive.
Using the abominable act of kanshou...
“Please forgive me...”
He was completely unable to say the words.
Snow fell and piled up high.
At this rate even his soul was going to freeze. He knew he was weakening, that his vitality was draining away.
Even the force of his self-blame was weakening.
He was such a fool, he didn’t know which way to turn.
How could he be forgiven?
At last he seemed to succumb to a hallucination.
In the darkness he saw his parents, though he didn’t know why. It was his family’s garden in the good old days. His mother Sawako was there. The moss roses were blooming. And there was his father, though he was supposed to hate him so much. He was wearing that warm smile that Takaya had so loved.
Miya was laughing nearby, her hands full of moss rose seeds.
Onii-chan, let’s plant these.
(Those flowers will never bloom, Miya...) Takaya told his sister in his vision.
The sister he had always protected. He‘d become her shield, determined to bear all the suffering himself. Because you needed me so much, I grew stronger, and I decided to stay. Miya couldn’t do without him. That had become one of his raisons d’être.
(I never saw you as a burden...)
You were so precious to me.
Her carefree smile had saved him so many times.
Even now...
(It’s time to stop...)
He was somehow performing another stupid escape; he really was fucked up.
"Naoe is not coming to save you.
He’d plotted this reckless escape because if he had remained and no one came to save him, he would have had to admit that truth—and that he couldn’t bear. That had been the only reason.
(Did I run...)
From that very last instant when despair became the only conclusion...?
Even though he’d sworn to himself, though he’d resolved to ascertain the truth for himself and never avert his eyes?
“You’re in a nightmare right now.”
He could hear Kaizaki’s voice.
He’d never forgotten his warmth. He’d dreamed in Kaizaki’s arms, so eerily similar to Naoe’s. Someone other than Naoe had wanted him as ardently, and he’d allowed himself to sink into those arms as if in a dream and wholly without conscious thought.
(Kaizaki...)
How had someone that was not Naoe gotten so near to his heart?
Or was it that someone sufficiently similar could be a substitute? Was that what it was, in the final analysis? Something as simple as that?
...That was all it was.
“You are in a maze...”
(Is there really a maze?)
Was he in yet another maze right now?
And was he going to die inside it without extricating himself...?
For a very long time Takaya’s fuzzy mind conjured various hallucinations.
Yuzuru was angry.
You’ve gotta come home, he said.
Right... Takaya answered silently, tilting his head a little.
(But you’re okay, right?)
You’ll be okay without me, won’t you?
Yuzuru was strong. Much more so than he himself. He would conquer his destiny...
That strength had been a wonder to him the first time he had met Yuzuru. Direct and forceful... Even when he had recoiled from it, he had been jealous. Maybe if he could be near it he could acquire some of that strength for himself, he’d thought.
Yuzuru was strong, with the same strength that Kagekatsu had possessed. Uesugi would have foundered without him. History had been right. Uesugi would not have survived those turbulent times without him.
Others would protect Yuzuru—people he trusted. Chiaki. Ayako. Irobe.
And maybe...Naoe...
(Naoe—...) he murmured the name once more.
His heart ached so much that perhaps it had gone numb; he no longer felt anger or hate or sorrow. Nothing.
(I feel nothing, Naoe...)
He’d gone mad.
That existence was too big...
The fluttering snow covered the earth in a white veil.
Leaning against the tree trunk, Takaya tilted his bowed head and closed his eyes.
I want you one more time.
Is that so impossible?
Am I supposed to resign myself to the loss of all hope?
Why didn’t I say something earlier?
Before it became like this...?
(Like the night of that fire.)
He had to go on his own two feet
(to see the truth...)
He had to grasp it with his own hands.
He had lost too much blood; he was frozen stiff and could no longer move.
(Father—...)
Snow fell thickly around him...
Cold snow fell on his outstretched legs and shoulders. He was losing body heat. His consciousness had gone almost completely dim. His eyelids felt so heavy. He no longer felt either pain or cold. He lacked the strength to move even the tips of his fingers.
The forest was entirely silent.
(For some reason—...)
For some reason he felt...
He felt so tired.
The sound of footsteps reached his ears.
Creak, creak.
The sound of armor.
The dead were coming.
Creaking with heavy armor.
Takaya opened his eyes slightly.
Through the forest they came: skeletal ghosts in ragged armor. One followed by another.
Dragging along the armor they had not been able to remove even in death. Like so many he had seen before, they too harbored a deep-seated grudge.
(Am I hallucinating...?)
Apparently he wasn’t.
Takaya tilted his head to the sky and closed his eyes. So he wasn’t going to die a dog’s death after all. They were probably going to tear him limb from limb.
He smiled.
(...Hurry up and give me peace.)
His armor-clad angels of death had come to assemble his funeral procession.
TO BE CONTINUED