“You cannot imagine the magnitude of the task when first we began. So few of us left, we Serpents. And if you had told us then we could convince the entire country to become complicit in its own death, to not merely sit back and let us work, but actually aid us … well, we would have called you insane.”
Tojo’s laughter was the flutter of a thousand metal wings.
“But you are blind. So blind.”
“You lied to them,” Daichi growled. “No one could have known…”
“Should they need to? You people are not eyeless. You could see the damage you were doing to your world. Red skies. Black rivers. Mass extinctions. And nobody lifted a finger. Because it was easier, wasn’t it? The world we gave you? We never forced anyone’s hand, Daichi-san. We simply gave you the blade and let you cut your own throat.”
Daichi spat black onto the floor. “Not all of us are blind to what you do.”
“And for that, you have my thanks.”
“So why?” Daichi rasped. “Why tell me all of this?”
“Because there is nothing you can do to stop it. What Will Be, Will Be.”
Daichi couldn’t see Tojo’s face, but he swore the old man was smiling. A toothless grin behind a chitin mask, sallow skin and ricket bones held together by its cage of brass. He could feel the rage inside; that burning, blinding hate he’d drawn so much strength from. The gift he’d urged Yukiko to embrace. Here he was—in the heart of Guild power. Their leader near-helpless before him. The man responsible for all of it—poisoned sky, blackened earth, mass graves.
Tojo deserved to die. Here and now. Head twisted until his neck snapped through, his last sensation the severance of his spinal cord and the slow choke that followed.
He deserved it. And if everything he said was true, there was no escaping it.
“Death is too good for you,” Daichi hissed.
“Death does not think. Merely takes. Good has nothing to do with it.”
Daichi coughed. Once. Twice. Holding his belly as a fit started, gods no, not now …
“If it did, you would not be dying. For are you not a … good man?”
“No…” Daichi wiped his lips, breathing hard and spitting dark. “I am a murderer. Ten years of rebellion won’t atone … for a lifetime of service to a regime built on butchery and lies.”
“Feel no shame. You are what was intended. All you have done is what you were meant to. Accepting this brings freedom. Freedom to do whatever it is in your nature to do.”
“And you would have me kill you,” Daichi wheezed. “For such is my nature. I’ve devoted my life to stamping out your kind … Here you are, within my reach, and I have no reason not to do it. For though you think Kin will rise in your remains, I tell you now I know that boy better than any smoke dream … He will never rule this place.”
“What Will Be, Will—”
“Spare me.” Daichi glared up at the chattering throne. “You say all this is foretold—this room, your tomb, and I, your killer. But your dreams have no power over me, old man. Mine is the world I build … My triumphs, my mistakes, my loves, my losses. I choose what I am. Every day. I rise, and I stand. And the world you describe is one where I only kneel.”
Daichi straightened, shoulders set, fists clenched.
“And so while I have every reason to kill you … I stay my hand. This, I decide. Your What Will Be will only be if I choose it. And I choose to defy it.” He spit on the ground. “So much for your predetermination. So much for what you know to be true.”
Tojo stared down at Daichi for a long, silent moment, distant thunder the only sound. And then he began clapping, metal striking metal, the sound of hammer hitting anvil underscored with a hollow sibilance Daichi finally recognized as laughter.
“You skinless,” he said. “How you love your delusions.”
“Speak your lies all you wish.” Daichi spat again. “I will die as I have lived this past decade. Free. I will not give you the death you desire.”
“I never said you would give me death, Daichi-san. I said only you would bring it to me.”
Tojo tilted his head to the sky.
“I think…”
A shadow, falling like an arrow from the clouds. A gleaming blade in an outstretched hand, golden cranes in flight across black lacquer. Folded steel piercing burnished brass, in through the join between shoulder and throat, out through the chest, crimson-drenched.
The First Bloom gasped as Kaori tore her wakizashi free.
“At last…”
“Daughter, no!”
And raising the blade, face twisted in hate, Kaori struck off the First Bloom’s head.
43
BRIGHT AS THE SUN
Kin lay in a puddle of blood, ruby-slick hands pressed to his thigh. A Shatei had rendered some rudimentary first aid—hurried sutures and a wad of bandages; just enough to stop him bleeding out. He was propped against a railing, staring out the viewports at the carnage below.