The Honorable Death.
The ground below was a pockmarked wasteland, the rusting hulk of a chi pipeline snaking away through the deadlands fumes. Kin looked to the Winter Harvest blackening the skies four hundred yards off their stern. He didn’t think of the man who’d trusted him, locked somewhere in that ship’s hold. He didn’t think of the night on the Thunder Child when she stood beside him, hand in hand as they laughed in the clean rain. He didn’t think of her lips pressed against his in the Iishi, raindrops reflected like jewels in her eyes.
The world around him slowly unraveled; insurgency rising, gaijin plundering, total war drawing closer. And in all that chaos, Kin thought of nothing. Nothing at all.
Safer that way.
“I know you.”
Kin turned from the fleet to the figure that had materialized beside him. The armor made a small din as he moved; spitting chi, hissing pistons, clockwork teeth. Painted death-white, the same as the ashes smeared on his face. The master of the Tiger zaibatsu. The one who would lead the Tora army to final victory. The corpse that hungered for its grave.
“Daimyo Hiro,” Kin replied.
“I know you,” Hiro repeated.
“I think not.”
“You’re the one,” the Tora Daimyo nodded. “You gave the thunder tiger his metal wings, and that same thunder tiger took my arm.” A small shake of his head, pistons hissing. “Of every ship traveling to the staging grounds, they would post you to this one, wouldn’t they?”
Kin heard no anger in Hiro’s voice. Simply the bitter resignation of a man already heaped chin-deep with indignity, suffering quietly beneath one more shovel load.
“Second Bloom Kensai is … indisposed,” Kin said. “I stand in his stead. Apologies if this inconveniences you, honorable Daimyo.”
“She called you Kin. That is your name, is it not?”
Do not call me Kin. That is not my name.
“Hai.”
Call me First Bloom.
“Then as I say, I know you.”
“As I say, honorable Daimyo, I think not.”
“Tiger is not as blind as you think. My uncle’s spy network still whispers to me on occasion. They speak of a Guildsman who joined the Kagé, only to betray them. Selling their leader during the Kigen uprising, handing him over in exchange for safe harbor.” Hiro eyed Kin’s new suit up and down. “And a promotion, it seems.”
“Forgiveness, honorable Daimyo. But you know nothing.”
“I know we’re the same, you and I. I thought I loved her too, at first.”
Kin turned sharply, atmos-suit hissing a plume of blue-black. The mechabacus was a constant clatter in the back of his mind. Soothing. Silencing.
“Until I found out what she was,” Hiro said. “Until she betrayed me. I’m wondering what she did to you, to see this story end with you beside me?”
“This is not about Yukiko.”
Hiro laughed like a man who’d only read about it in books. “Everything we do is about her. Don’t you see, Kin-san? We’re both falling, you and I. And Yukiko? She’s our gravity.”
Silence, broken by churning propellers and hungry wind. Kin counted the spaces between each smooth breath, his bellows rising and falling. Second. By second. By second.
“The Kagé leader you handed over to the Guild was once Iron Samurai, did you know that?” A ghastly smile perched on Hiro’s lips, as if they shared some private joke. “How did it feel when you turned Daichi over to your old masters?”
Kin glanced at the Daimyo’s corpse-pale face. This was an answer he knew by rote.
“It felt like justice.”
“I suppose if you were handed over to the Kagé, they’d call it justice too?”
“Do you think it matters what they say?”
“Not I, no.” Hiro shook his head. “But I’m not the one who betrayed everyone he knew to join them. Dead samurai. Dead Shōgun. A clan in tatters and a nation in ruin. Did you ever stop to think none of this would be happening if not for you, Kin-san? If you’d simply left the thunder tiger to Yoritomo’s mercies, and not deluded yourself with dreams of her affection? Do you ever think that? Does the thought of it wake you in the night?”
Kin remained mute, turning away to watch the distant storms.
“And all for nothing, eh?” Hiro mused. “For here you stand, where once you began. Did she at least take you for a roll before she cast you aside? That’s her usual method of payment.”
Counting the space between breaths.
Thinking nothing.
Nothing at all.
Hiro patted Kin’s shoulder like an older brother, clockwork fingers rasping on new brass.
“Feel no shame she used you, Kin-san. She has a gift for making men look like fools.”
“I think perhaps it is men who have a gift for it, great Daimyo,” Kin finally said. “Women simply stand aside and leave us to it.”
“Ah, such wisdom…”
“To some, perhaps.”