and a set of laws all mixed together. Loyalty and sacrifice and humility— they live their entire lives by it. But above all, the code demands servitude. Allegiance to a master. If your master dies, or you break your oath, you become ronin. It is a source of shame. A great loss of face.
HE IS OATH-BREAKER, THEN? LIAR?
Yukiko lifted her head from the floor to look for the man’s irezumi, the symbol of his clan inked on his flesh. But his arms were covered with the sleeves of his uwagi, gray cloth running down to his wrists, frayed at the cuffs. He followed her eyeline, something like amusement twinkling in that steelgray.
“Where are you from, Yukiko-chan?”
“Kigen, Daichisama.”
“And you served on the sky-ship that crashed into Kuromeru Peak?”
“Hai,” she nodded, keeping her eyes low.
“Mrmn,” he grunted, running one hand through his mustache. There was something reptilian about the man; something ancient and slow, all muscles and teeth and endless, cold-blooded patience. “You were not aboard the life boat. How did you survive the crash?”
“I set Buruu free from his cage. When he leaped over the railing, I jumped on his back.”
“You flew on an arashitora?”
A faint murmur rippled among the assembled figures. Kaori narrowed her eyes.
“Hai,” Yukiko nodded.
“Aiya.” Daichi shook his head. “One hundred summers could come and go, and we would never hear another tale like that.”
“It was either that or die,” Yukiko shrugged.
“And you killed four oni?”
“Five, Daichisama,” said Kaiji. “The northern slopes. Near Black Temple.”
“Mrmn,” he nodded. “Have you heard of the Stormdancers, Yukiko-chan?”
She looked up from the floorboards and met Daichi’s stare. He was older than her father but unmarked by lotus smoke, gaze still sharp, skin clean. His body was hard, lean, calloused fingers and old scars. The katana on the wall behind him was within easy reach of his hand.
“Stories.” Yukiko shook her head. “From childhood. Kitsune no Akira and the Dragon of Forgetting. Kazuhiko the Red and the hundred ronin. Widow’s Bridge, and the doomed charge of Tora Takehiko into Devil Gate.”
“One of my favorites,” Daichi smiled.
“They’re just stories.”
“Some might say,” he nodded. “Tales of halcyon days can serve to promote nationalist pride. The Communications Ministry invokes past glories to inspire new ones among the working class, to wring more sweat from the karōshimen’s backs. To convince more young men to take up arms and spill their heart’s blood beneath the Shōgun’s flag in a war they know nothing about. The Stormdancers have become pulp heroes, serialized on the Guild wireless, their stories drained of all meaning and truth. It is easy to see why you’d think them nothing more than propaganda. Such is the shape of the world in which we live.”
Daichi nodded toward the doorway, in the direction of Buruu.
“Your . . . friend, you call him? If there were any justice, our kind would have never seen his kind again. But here he is, a miracle in flesh, proof that there is truth even in their lies. And what do they do when they learn one of these creatures still exists?” The old man sighed. “Hunt him down and cripple him like some wretched sparrow in the palace gardens.”
“The Shōgun commanded it.”
“The Shōgun.” Daichi chuckled, amusement spreading like an infection among his cohort. “The Shōgun commands only that which we allow him to.”
“Everyone on these islands owes Yoritomo-no-miya their allegiance.” Steelgray eyes glittered.
“Nobody in this room owes Yoritomo a thing, Yukiko-chan.” “So you are ronin, then?”
“Hai, I am ronin.” Daichi’s smile faded. “Once I served the Shōgun’s house. I wore the ō-yoroi and the golden jin-haori of the Kazumitsu Elite guard. I know Masaru, the Black Fox, who mutilated your friend’s wings. I know Yoritomo, who sits as Shōgun of the Four Thrones and would be my Lord.”
Daichi’s hand moved slowly, rolling up the sleeves of his uwagi. Where there should have been irezumi, there was only a blanket of patchwork scars, stretching from his elbows to his shoulders. The skin was rough and uneven, pale in comparison to the rich tan on his face.
“You burned off your tattoos?” Yukiko frowned.
“I have no zaibatsu. I will suffer no Lord such as Yoritomo. None of us here carries the symbols of slavery any longer. No clan save our own. No masters save ourselves.”
Conscious of the irezumi running down her left arm, Yukiko thanked Kitsune that her uwagi’s sleeves were long enough to cover it. Daichi smiled, as if he knew her thoughts.
“Symbols of slavery?” Yukiko tilted her head.
“When a man’s fate is not his own, when he may die at the behest of a man born luckier or wealthier, when he sweats all his life for scraps from another’s table, then he is in peril.” Daichi’s eyes glittered in the half light. “But when he accepts it in his heart, when he ceases to struggle against that fundamental injustice, then he is a slave.”
Yukiko’s face burned. She was no slave. Her friends, her family, they were all freemen. Who did this man think he was?