Tsuneoki had turned to his demon for assistance.
ōkami could not remember a time in his life when he’d felt more useless. More of a burden than anything else. He’d fought for a life devoid of this feeling. A life in which no one needed to rely upon him.
He’d enjoyed living without this burden. Without these responsibilities.
Yet he stood here, watching as two of his dearest friends fought to keep him safe. Risked their lives for his own.
A yelp cut through the din of clashing metal, and ōkami saw Tsuneoki limp away on three of his four legs. He’d been wounded. Or a past injury had been aggravated. Ren continued fending off the onslaught of soldiers that poured from the hillside beyond. Everywhere he spun his blades, blood spurted in their wake. His eyes were alight with fury. He turned into the path of the blade that caught him. It speared him clean through his stomach, cutting upward at the last instant. One moment Ren wore a look of triumph, the next of confusion.
“Uesama?” he mouthed to ōkami.
It was what his father’s men had called Takeda Shingen.
Their shōgun.
ōkami’s features twisted at the sight. He yanked the metal pin Mariko had given him from his shirtsleeve and lurched into the fight. Narrowly dodging the swing of a katana in his path, ōkami stabbed the pin into the neck of the nearest soldier, then tore the screaming man’s weapon from his grasp.
Hatred flowed through his veins.
More of the people ōkami loved were dying because of him. Even when he’d fought for so long to prevent it. He grasped the hilt of the blade in both hands. The stars above him seemed to sway. Searing pain rippled across his body.
He saw Ren fall to the ground, his eyes frozen open in shock, as though—even in death—he still could not believe he’d been beaten. His body struck the earth slowly, as though time had stilled. First his knees, then his torso, then his head. ōkami felt each of the jolts as though they were punches to his gut.
Here one moment, gone the next. In the stories, all the heroes had time for farewells. In truth, Ren had time for nothing.
Everything around ōkami ground to a halt. It was as though he were viewing these events from above, as a detached observer, witnessing the end of a foolish boy who should have known better.
His rage was clarity. His rage was strength. His rage moved him to action.
ōkami still had broken bones. He still felt each of the agonizing twinges and aches of his protesting body.
It no longer mattered.
He grabbed hold of another weapon. A smaller sword, so that he held one in each hand. It had been years since he’d fought with blades. His fingers trembled from the weight, but ōkami swung both swords in unforgiving arcs. Shouts of agony rained down around him. Though his body was shattered, the weapons felt natural in his hands, like extensions of himself. Of his pain. Of his heartbreak.
He faltered as he moved forward. Lost his center for a moment. A sword slashed past his side, the edge of the blade nicking his skin. Glancing off his ribs.
That soldier lost his head in a single blow.
Then ōkami reached Ren. Before he could grant himself a chance to think, he locked eyes with the moon and yelled the guttural yell of something barely human. Then he dissolved into a dark smoke that spiraled into the night sky, the echoes of an otherworldly scream trailing in its wake.
When ōkami landed in the clearing, he dropped Ren’s lifeless body. Then he took a single breath before collapsing to the ground.
Severed Limbs and Broken Ties
Hours later, in a darkened corner of the castle grounds, the imperial guards found a boy trying to conceal a bow and arrow deep in a servant’s well. He panicked when he saw the samurai racing toward him. In his panic, the boy nearly threw himself into the well along with the weapons.
He could not have been more than twelve years of age.
When the boy was brought before Raiden, tears streamed down his cheeks. He was not even old enough to have a single hair on his chin. The first thing he asked for was his grandmother. A soldier cuffed him across the side of the head for his insolence.
It would not be the last time the boy was struck.
Raiden clenched his right fist. The ache from his injured arm radiated into his side. He let the pain wash over his body, reminding him of how closely he’d strolled beside Death. How closely his emperor—his younger brother—had been to meeting his end.
He intended to punish the boy. Extract whatever information he could, and then separate the boy’s head from his body with a single swipe of a sword.
Alas, that was not his brother’s plan.
Mariko remained kneeling on her chamber floor for hours before Isa slid open the doors. The maidservant bowed at the threshold and set down a tray of food. Then the samurai guarding Mariko permitted her brother to enter. To speak with her, alone.
Though he appeared stern, haggardness lined Kenshin’s features, as though he had not slept for an age. Mariko’s fingers shook with relief at seeing her brother unharmed. “Is the emperor badly wounded?”
“No.” He stayed beside the door, declining to meet her gaze.
Mariko swallowed. “Is Raiden?”
“No.”
He sounds … disappointed.
Unsure of what to say, Mariko bided her time. “I—”
“Once the commotion dies down, I intend to leave Inako and return home.”
Though she was surprised to hear this, Mariko kept it to herself.
After a moment of stony silence, Kenshin continued, still refusing to look her in the eye. “Now that your marriage ceremony has concluded, I intend to seek the whereabouts of—”
“What happened to Amaya, Kenshin?”
Her brother stopped short. His weariness grew even more apparent. “I asked you before not to—”
“No.” Mariko’s words were a tattered whisper. “I’ve kept silent. I’ve done this dance of lies so many times I fear I no longer know what’s true. I’ve hidden my thoughts and feelings from you in ways I never believed I would.” She tried to stand and failed, the heavy silks of her layered garments making it impossible to take to her feet without assistance. “Why are you treating me as though I am a criminal, Kenshin?”
He crossed the room in two long strides, towering over her. “You think I’m the only one among us who has acted unfairly?” Kenshin’s breath shook with rage. “Not once—not a single time after the battle in Jukai forest—have you looked at me without duplicity in your eyes.”
“If I deceived you, it was only because you left me with no choice,” Mariko cried. “You never once thought to ask me what happened after my convoy was overrun. The moment I emerged from the forest, you treated me with nothing but cold disdain.” She took a halting breath. “You let Raiden and his men fire arrows at me. You didn’t care if I was hurt, so long as you stood on the winning side.”
“What should I have done? What could I have done?” A look of abject pain crossed Kenshin’s face. “What choice did you leave me? You were fighting alongside traitors.”
She forced her back straight and lifted her chin. “I was not allied with them. I was their prisoner.” The fingers folded in her lap trembled.