The Memory Painter

A strange calm washed over Oishi. At last, here was his enemy.

Oishi and his men dropped to their knees out of respect for Kira’s station. They waited in silence for him to address them.

But Kira did not speak. He looked feeble and old. His body shook with fear.

Oishi finally broke the silence. His words were soft but measured. “Vengeance does not bow to time. We have come to avenge the House of Asano.” He pulled out his sword and offered it to Kira. “I will allow you to kill yourself with honor, as my lord did, and I will stand as your Second.”

Shivering, Kira stared blankly ahead—any hint of arrogance or belligerence had gone. Oishi frowned, wondering if Kira’s mind had become afflicted by disease in the two years since Asano’s passing. Or perhaps the man was simply too frightened to die.

Hara stepped forward. “He won’t do it. We must take matters into our hands.”

Oishi nodded and stood, sword in hand. His enemy still refused to engage him. “I, Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, Chief Retainer to the House of Asano, will now take your life.”

With one swift move, he severed Kira’s head.

For a moment, no one seemed to move or breathe. They couldn’t believe they had done it—Kira had been forced from this Earth. The men wrapped his head with extreme care so they could take it with them. Their mission was not yet over.

Maneuvering through side streets to avoid detection, the forty-seven ronin reached Sengaku-ji temple. They washed the head in the temple’s well and brought it to Lord Asano’s grave. No one spoke. Oishi placed Kira’s head next to the stone, and everyone bowed in unison, making new ground for the snow to fall on their backs.

Oishi gazed at the head of his enemy as it lay on his lord’s final resting place and, with fierce satisfaction, breathed in the cold air, letting it soothe the fire that had been burning inside him for so long.

He bowed to Asano for the last time and left. Kira’s head could remain on the grave. He did not need it anymore.



THIRTY-FIVE

Linz woke up kneeling in the bathroom, doubled over in pain. Her hands gripped her middle as she gasped for breath. The memories bombarded her: she had been a samurai, plotted for two years to kill a man, beheaded him and then, satisfied, had committed seppuku. Her men had died with her—their actions restoring the House of Asano.

She remembered that in Michael’s journal, Finn had recognized her father as Lord Kira. The rage and bloodlust she had felt as Oishi warred against her horror and guilt. Oishi won.

With a war cry, she sprung up and began to destroy everything in sight with the strength of a man twice her size.

She demolished her living room, then moved to the hallway, smashing every framed photograph on the wall. The pictures of her father drove her into the darkest field. The urge to hunt him, to kill him in cold blood, pervaded her psyche.

Her body felt alien to her, her senses sharpened. Every moment, every word, every taste, every scent in Oishi’s life passed through her like the fiercest wind. It took her rage with it and left her numb.

She stared at the broken frames lying jigsawed across the floor. Only one picture remained intact: a photo of Linz’s mother taken just weeks before she had died.

Linz clutched the picture against her heart as if she could somehow embrace her mother’s spirit from the other side. She desperately needed her.