Sengoku [Chapter 9] (Patreon)

Chapter 9 - The Crows

“The Way of the warrior is the twofold Way of the brush and sword.”

- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings.

Morning arrived, surprisingly, without pain. Shimon had expected stiffness, soreness, or some other consequence of the previous day’s exertions, but either there was something restorative in the bathwater or the points he had invested in Body were enough to counter ordinary fatigue and the buildup of lactic acid. When he sat up, he discovered that sleep had, for once, actually left him refreshed.

He rolled one shoulder, then the other, and drew his knees up experimentally. The bruises Matsuda Jūbei had left on him remained tender, but the weakness was gone. His thighs did not tremble when he stood, and the raw places across his palms had closed during the night.

The accessed his internal monitoring.

[PASSIVE MONITORING ACTIVE]

Sleep Quality: GoodMuscular Recovery: AcceleratedInflammatory Response: LowUnknown Carrier Signal: Low / IntermittentCondition: Spiritually Marked

The corner above the storage alcove looked ordinary in the morning light. Shimon watched it long enough to feel foolish, then dressed and went through his ablutions. Even the privy seemed vaguely normal now.

He heard Tarō before he reached the kitchen, the sound of him at least eating into his house’s store of food.

The man eats with the steady industry of a millstone.

Shimon stopped in the doorway. Tarō sat at the low table with a bowl raised almost to his face. His hair had been tied badly, one side of it already coming loose, and his eyes were red from the previous night’s sake. Two empty dishes rested beside him.

“Did your house burn down?” Shimon asked, trying not to sound too irritated at such an early hour.

Kume lowered the bowl. “No.”

Ayanokouji gripped his fists. “Then why are you eating in mine?”

“Kiyo cooks better. The servants at my house burn the rice. And the soup tastes of river mud,” he added.

Kiyo placed breakfast before Shimon. “Perhaps they dislike him.”

Tarō just shrugged indifferently.

Genbei was working in the courtyard beyond the open doors, splitting kindling beside the shed. Shimon sat and reached for his tea.

Breakfast was rice, soup, pickled greens, and a little grilled fish. Beyond the garden wall, the castle town was already awake. Wheels ground over the road, vendors called to one another, and something large snorted beneath a harness.

A ridged back passed above the wall. An armored form plodded along the lane, dragging a cart piled with firewood. Its short legs gave it the stubborn gait of an armored pig, and its driver had to pull its head away from a clump of weeds growing beside the ditch. An aetosaur variant, his chip supplied helpfully.

The animal passed, bells knocking softly beneath its throat.

Something caught his eye. Higher above the town, several shapes circled in the brightening sky. Shimon mistook them for large cranes until one folded its wings and plunged toward the river. It rose again with a fish twisting in its long jaws.

[VISUAL CLASSIFICATION]

Pterosaurian variant organismEstimated wingspan: 3.9 mSpecies correspondence: Uncertain

Shimon dismissed the panel and returned to his soup. Flying reptiles no longer justified interrupting breakfast.

Tarō set down his bowl. “Yesterday,” he started, “I drank more than was wise.”

Shimon waited. “I may have spoken beyond what was proper.”

“You called me yōma,” the young man accused.

“I said perhaps you were,” Kume deflected.

“That distinction has repaired everything,” came Shimon’s sarcastic response.

Tarō rubbed his face. “I miss my brother.”

The excuse was obvious, but no less true for being one.

“So?” Shimon retorted.

For a few moments he stared at the grain of the table. Apology did not sit naturally upon him. It seemed to require muscles he had never trained.

“I should not have said it.”

Shimon drank his tea before answering. “No. You should not have.”

Tarō nodded and that was the full ceremony. He had admitted fault, which was more than Shimon had expected when he woke. The young man found himself not caring either way. Found himself not caring if Kume died in a ditch.

After breakfast, Tarō said he needed to collect something before they went to the castle. They left Shimon’s house together and walked toward the lower embankment.

The streets had grown busier. Porters carried boxes suspended from shoulder poles. A pair of squat, beaked reptiles came up from the market with baskets of turnips hanging across their backs. Their hides bore painted merchant marks, and one snapped irritably at a dog that came too close.

Tarō’s assigned house stood three streets below Shimon’s. It was smaller and needed new plaster along the road-facing wall, though the roof appeared sound. An elderly servant swept the entrance. He bowed to Tarō, then glanced at Shimon with wary resignation.

Tarō entered a side room.

Incense burned there. He had placed Jirō’s short sword upon a low shelf. The strip of red cloth his brother had worn around one arm rested beside it, washed but still darkly stained near one end. A bowl of rice and a cup of water stood before them.

There was no mortuary tablet. The priests had not yet completed the rites or bestowed a posthumous name. Tarō had made do with what remained.

He knelt and lit a fresh stick of incense. His hands, usually careless around bowls and cups, moved with measured attention.

Shimon remained by the doorway until Tarō glanced over his shoulder. “You should pay respects,” he suggested.

The younger man looked at him with a shake of his head. “I did not do this.”

“I did not say that, but he fought alongside you”

Tarō shifted aside and made room before the shelf. “Kneel.”

Shimon obeyed for the sake of it. “What am I meant to say?”

“Whatever you think is appropriate,” Kume said with a shrug.

Ayanokouji looked at the short sword and remembered Jirō on the road, laughing at his brother’s jokes before Tarō had finished telling them. He remembered the spear entering the grey creature and the creature dragging itself farther down the shaft.

Shimon put his hands together and bowed. “Thank you.”

It was plain, but Jirō had been a plain man and would probably have distrusted anything more elaborate.

Tarō accepted it with a small nod.

A boy called from the street outside. “Message from Nagai-sama!”

The living had schedules. Tarō rose, and they left Jirō his incense and rice.

***

The next few days settled into a steady rhythm of meals, instruction, bruises, baths, and sleep. The relentless training eventually carried Shimon to Level Five. He invested his new Attribute points in Body and placed his Skill point in Swords. Stamina and Health were pretty self-explanatory, but looking over his status, he had yet to figure out how to apply his Mana resource.

Matsuda Jūbei remained principally concerned with Shimon’s progress, particularly his footwork. And, according to Jūbei,his left foot opened too far, his weight rose before the cut, his shoulders tightened when an opponent entered range, and a myriad of other small mistakes. Matsuda corrected each fault with a word, a tap of the practice sword, or a blow hard enough to prevent repetition.

The shinai flexed on impact, sparing the students the broken bones that wooden swords might have caused, though they remained perfectly capable of raising painful welts. In Shimon’s case, each blow cost him only a small amount of Health, but inspired a considerably larger measure of resentment toward the instructor. 

Matsuda looked at him disapprovingly. “Again.”

Shimon raised the leather-covered bamboo weapon, stepped, cut, and recovered.

Ayanokouji repeated the forms until his palms blistered during the second day. One blister tore open during the third and left blood on the leather grip. Matsuda bound it with cloth, adjusted Shimon’s hands by the width of a finger, and sent him back into line.

By the end of the week, the skin had begun to harden.

His stamina improved more slowly but just as certainly. He no longer reached midday with his breath tearing at his throat. When his form began to fail, it did so later, and he recovered sooner between drills.

His System acknowledged the change during a long afternoon of footwork.

You have gained 1 Attribute point in Body.                               You have gained 1 Attribute point in Mind.

The gains were harder to feel now, but welcome nonetheless. His biochip, his companion in his brain, had also been watching the dōjō carefully through Shimon’s senses, using a portion of his processing power to analyze and catalogue what it saw.

It recorded Shinnosuke’s recovery after a cut, Tarō’s forceful entries, Matsuda’s economical turns, and the recurring mistakes of every junior student. Shimon instructed it to give greater weight to movements Matsuda approved and to disregard anything the instructor corrected.

[OBSERVED MOTION DATASET]

Kenjutsu patterns recorded: 1,462Instructor-confirmed repetitions: 387Motor comparison active

The chip could not put the strength into his legs or settle his weight for him. It could, however, remember the best repetition he had performed and show him where the next one departed from it.

On the seventh morning, Shimon completed the first, second, and third katas beneath Matsuda’s gaze. The foot landed as the hips turned. With his chip’s help, his hands followed instead of dragging the rest of the body behind them, and the shinai stopped on the line without wrenching at his shoulders.

You have learned Swords [9]

Matsuda watched him return to his stance. “Acceptable.”

Shimon bowed before satisfaction could show on his face. From Matsuda, the word amounted to extravagant praise.

The afternoon lessons moved into the yard and changed weapons.

Ishikawa Mondo, a broad retainer with one missing ear, placed a spear in Shimon’s hands and examined his grip.

“The point kills,” he stated in explanation. “The shaft brings the point to its target.”

Shimon possessed fragments of spear knowledge from his class and earlier experience, but they remained impressions rather than dependable habits. Ishikawa stripped the motions down and rebuilt them.

The rear hand drove. The forward hand guided. The body stayed behind the point rather than falling after it. A missed thrust had to return quickly enough that the enemy could not seize the shaft.

They practiced straight thrusts, withdrawals, sweeps, strikes with the butt, and hooks behind an opponent’s knee. Ishikawa showed them how to shorten the grip when something forced its way inside the proper distance.

The yard lay beside the animal pens. Handlers worked three feathered fukuivenator variants on long leads beyond the fence. The creatures responded to whistles and signs, darting after scraps of meat dragged across the ground. Whenever one became more interested in the spear practice than its handler, the man snapped a cord against the earth and brought its bright eyes around again.

Tarō remained a better spearman. He had years of work behind his hands and enjoyed making the difference known.

“You hold it like a writing brush,” he laughed.

“You write like a spider fell into the ink,” scoffed Shimon.

In response, Tarō struck him across the shin with the padded shaft, but by the end of the lessons, the System rewarded the work.

You have learned Spears [5]

Archery, however, produced faster gains.

Isobe Tadayasu taught them in a field below the castle wall. He was an elderly samurai with a narrow chest, a powerful back, and one clouded eye. His good eye missed very little.

He gave Shimon a long asymmetrical bow, a leather thumb glove, and three arrows. “A sword may forgive a strong fool,” Isobe instructed. “A bow remembers every lie in the body.”

Shimon’s first arrow struck the ground several paces short of the straw target. The string slapped the inside of his forearm.

Tarō laughed at him.

His own first arrow sailed over the target and vanished into the embankment, and Isobe struck him across the calf with a cane.

The chip began measuring.

[BALLISTIC ANALYSIS ACTIVE]

Range: 34.7 mWind: 2.1 m/s lateralDraw consistency: PoorPredicted impact deviation: Severe

A pale trajectory appeared in Shimon’s vision, augmenting the reality he saw. He raised the bow, corrected his elevation, and tried again. The second arrow struck the lower edge of the target. The third landed closer to the center.

Archery suited the chip better than sword fighting. An arrow did not feint or alter its intention halfway through an attack. Once released, it obeyed measurable conditions: draw, angle, wind, range, gravity, and the movement of the target. It also had the distinct advantage that whatever happened, happened much further away than a sword or spear.

The chip could calculate where the arrow should go, however, it could not make Shimon’s body send it there. At least not entirely.

Isobe pressed two fingers into the muscles between his shoulder blades. “Open here. Do not haul the string with the arm.”

The master’s good eye narrowed. “Again.”

The distances increased over the next several days. The targets grew smaller. Later, attendants suspended straw bundles from ropes and pulled them across the field at changing speeds.

The chip measured the rhythm and supplied the lead. Shimon began hitting four shots in six, then five when the movement remained predictable.

His skill rose quickly, all the way to Bows [6].

The System had given him the basic memories of drawing and releasing a bow when he had advanced into the Samurai class. The chip refined aim and corrected for the world around him. Between the two, he had an advantage that swordsmanship did not allow. A skilled swordsman could lie with his whole body; wind and distance, however, could not.

Still, his technique remained inconsistent. When he tired, his left shoulder rose. His drawing hand plucked at the release, and the bow turned in his grip. The chip could identify each failure, but only practice and ingrained muscle memory could prevent it. His biochip could show him the path, but his body still had to learn it.

On the final afternoon of the week, Isobe took them beyond the lower wall to practice at the archery butts. In a distant field, an aetosaur dragged a plow through the earth while its owner urged it onward with occasional taps of a stick against its armored back. The animal moved with the weary patience of a beast that had long since resigned itself to human demands.

They loosed their arrows across uneven ground while the wind rose and fell in restless gusts. When a rabbit suddenly burst from the grass, Isobe pointed after it with his cane.

“Take it.”

Shimon hesitated just long enough to lose the first clear shot, then raised the bow as the animal veered toward the ditch.

[TARGET TRACKING]

Estimated speed: 14.2 m/sPath variance: HighLead calculation updating

A blue marker appeared ahead of the rabbit, and Shimon drew and released in what he considered a reasonably smooth motion. The arrow struck the earth behind it, sending the animal veering sharply aside. He reached for another, drew the string to the side of his face, and followed the marker as it shifted with the rabbit’s course. His shoulder sat too high, and Isobe would have found fault with the release, but the opportunity was already slipping away. Sometimes, adequacy had to serve where mastery was not yet available. 

The arrow struck behind the foreleg. The rabbit rolled through the grass and lay still.

You have learned Bows [7]

Tarō lowered his own bow with a shake of his head.

Isobe reached the small creature first, knelt, and ended its suffering with a quick twist of the neck. He examined the arrow, then looked back at Shimon with his usual severity.

“Too slow on the first shot, and your release could have been smoother.” He tucked the rabbit beneath one arm and gave a grudging nod. “Still, you adjusted. Well done.”

The rabbit went to the kitchens.

***

The following week, the messenger arrived at breakfast wearing an expression Tarō distrusted at once.

“We are not going to the dōjō,” Tarō put forth.

The boy’s smile disappeared at once. “How did you know?”

Kume grunted. “You looked far too pleased.”

Shimon studied the messenger. The boy had come for them nearly every morning for nigh on two weeks, yet neither of them had asked his name.

“What are you called?”

The boy straightened. “Sano Gōtarō, Ayanokouji-sama. Fifth son of Sano Hanzaemon, chief clerk in Lord Satomi’s household.”

The surname was familiar. “Shinnosuke is your brother,” the young man queried.

“He is my eldest brother,” the boy answered dutifully.

“I see, the one who defeated Tarō.”

“He did not defeat me,” Tarō tried to rebut pathetically.

Gōtarō looked down before his face betrayed him.

This time the boy led them away from the training ground and into the administrative quarter. Clerks passed carrying document boxes, account books, and bundles of wooden tags. One building stood slightly apart from the others, quiet behind a narrow garden.

The room within smelled of ink and old paper, dominated by an elderly man sitting behind a low desk. His body was thin, his back straight, and his white eyebrows extended far enough beyond one would consider normal.

He looked up as Gōtarō announced them.

“Ueda Sōan,” the old man offered in introduction. “Sit. Please”

Brushes, inkstones, paper, wooden tablets, folded letters, and account ledgers lay arranged around him. Shimon sat. Tarō did so with the grave suspicion of a man approaching an ambush.

Sōan pushed paper toward them. “Write your names.”

Tarō took the brush in a fist and did as he was bid.

The old man examined the result, shaking his head. “A spider has drowned in the ink.”

Tarō’s expression hardened.

Shimon picked up his own brush more carefully. He had studied calligraphy during childhood visits to Japan, mostly because his grandmother believed he wasn’t Japanese enough. 

The brush was softer than he remembered a brush should be. The ink spread differently, and the paper made him know it. Worse, many of the forms before him differed from the characters he knew. Formal hands, cursive abbreviations, variant kana, and the written conventions of another age confused him.

In the corner of his mental vision, the chip opened a discreet overlay.

[TEXT ANALYSIS]

Premodern cursive forms detectedVariant characters presentModern correspondence: PartialContextual assistance active

Shimon wrote his surname, and in his estimation, wrote it well enough.

Sōan placed it beside Tarō’s effort.

“Kume cannot write,” he accused.

Tarō stared pointedly ahead.

“Ayanokouji is not much better, he writes like a foreign drunk copying letters,” Master Ueda judged.

The judgment was unpleasantly accurate.

The morning passed in brush control, stroke order, and the preparation of ink. Sōan corrected Shimon’s tendency to work from the fingers rather than the elbow and shoulder.

The resemblance to sword training became irritating.

The lesson widened in scope over the following days. Sōan taught them the forms of warrior correspondence—the position of the addressee, the phrases suitable for a superior or equal, the placement of a signature and kaō, the folding of the sheet, and the words that could raise or lower a man by implication alone.

Sōan also instructed them in audience manners and the formal conduct expected in a retainer’s household. He was assisted twice by Fumi, the widow of a former household officer who had spent many years supervising young pages in Nagai’s residence.

She corrected posture, entrances, exits, and the precise depth of bows. She also introduced them to the elementary service of chanoyu—not the private mysteries of a celebrated tea master, but enough that neither man would disgrace himself when a superior placed a bowl before him.

The lessons alternated with martial training for another week.

Sword, spear, bow, yawara, writing, tea, and household conduct divided the days. In the grappling hall, they learned how to fall without breaking a wrist, how to control an armored sleeve, and how to use the hips to put a larger man on the ground. Every successful position ended with a wooden knife driven toward the throat, armpit, groin, or some other gap in imaginary armor.

Tarō excelled at turning a clean exercise into an ugly fight.

Shimon improved faster in the formal movements. His feet no longer betrayed him, and his reflexes had begun to rest upon trained responses rather than desperate improvisation.

Matsuda moved him into the intermediate group near the end of the week.

“You are no longer an immediate danger to the men beside you,” he grumbled.

Shimon bowed. “Thank you, sensei.”

“That was not praise.”

It was close enough.

In Ueda Sōan’s room, the difference between Shimon and Tarō widened in the opposite direction.

Tarō continued to assault paper. Shimon’s hand steadied as the chip assembled a dictionary of archaic expressions and linked cursive forms to the characters he knew. It also compared the movement of Sōan’s brush to his own, though too much assistance produced writing that was technically sound, but strangely lifeless.

Tarō watched him complete a short report, a look of frustrated jealousy lingering in his eyes.

***

Near the end of the month, just as Shimon was reviewing his progress on his main status page, Nagai Morichika invited him and Tarō to his residence. 

Ayanokouji Shimon [Human]

Class: SamuraiLevel: 5Health: 29/29Mana: 19/19Stamina: 25/25

Exp: 43/120

Main Attributes: Body 30, Mind 19, Spirit 16

Sub Attributes: Dexterity 184 [Enhanced], Fortune 28, Charisma 17

Skills: Lightning Reflexes 15/20, Analysis 14/20, Spears 7/20, Pain Tolerance 3/20, Swords 10/20, Ranged [Bows] 8/20, Hammers 4/20, Axes 5/20, Unarmed 7/20, Spirit Boost 1/20, Mind Boost 1/20, Body Boost 2/20, Heavy Armor 3/20, Medium Armor 3/20, Light Armor 4/20, Iai 4/20, Riding 1/20.

Spirit Break: Yae Ikazuchi.

Shimon made a note of his improved skills, nearly across the board, and organic gains in his attribute points. Not bad for level five he thought to himself along the way for he had grown in leaps and bounds. He felt as strong as two men, and his status reflected it.

The house stood within the upper castle town behind a plastered wall and a well-kept gate. It was larger than either house the two new retainers had received, but nothing about it was wasteful. The polished wood, armed servants, and carefully restrained decor silence conveyed an elegant wealth.

Two microraptors perched beneath the eaves. One worried at a giant insect held between its small clawed hands while the other watched Tarō remove his sandals.

They were shown into a room overlooking a narrow garden.

Nagai sat near the head of the chamber. A woman beside him poured tea with quiet precision.

“My lady wife, Chiyo,” he said.

Shimon and Tarō bowed.

Lady Chiyo returned the greeting, and Shimon accepted the bowl she offered without gripping it too tightly, staring into it, or turning it the wrong way. Nothing in her expression suggested offense.

Nagai noticed. “You have survived instruction and attained a measure of civility.”

“We continue to learn,” Tarō responded, his eyes downcast.

“Matsuda reports that Kume is useful and angry,” Morichika remarked.

The other man seemed uncertain which part mattered more.

He looked over the young man. “He says Ayanokouji is quick, observant, and has recently acquired control of his feet.”

Shimon bowed slowly.

“Ueda Sōan says, unfortunately, that Kume is an enemy of written language,” Matsuda added dryly.

Lady Chiyo lowered her gaze, though not before Shimon saw amusement touch her mouth at her husband’s words.

“You have submitted to work that offered no immediate reward,” Nagai continued. “That tells me more than the forest did. I knew you could fight when cornered. I needed to know whether you could obey while bored.”

His gaze moved between them.

“Courage and luck may carry a man through one close encounter. They will not carry him through ten. You must understand orders, make reports, recognize warnings, and speak to men whose knowledge lies outside your own.”

“What comes next?” Shimon asked.

Nagai lifted his cup. “You are most hasty, as I was when I was your age. First, however, you will eat and contemplate.”

Guests arrived before sunset.

The chief clerk, Sano Hanzaemon, proved to be a narrow man with a carefully trimmed beard and an air of worn patience. Gōtarō sat at the lower end of the room, trying unsuccessfully to look older than thirteen. Shinnosuke joined several samurai from the training hall.

Tarō greeted him with courtesy, then leaned toward Shimon. “He cheated, you know.”

Shimon ignored him.

Food arrived in stages, followed by warmed sake. The talk remained formal until the trays were cleared and Nagai’s steward knelt at the edge of the room.

“O-Ren of the eastern landing has come, Nagai-sama,” the steward informed.

Nagai waved his hand. “Let her enter.”

A woman stepped into the chamber with a flute player and a boy carrying a small hand drum.

She was introduced as a yūjo from the houses near the river landing—a woman who earned her living through song, dance, conversation, and whatever private arrangements followed for men wealthy enough to seek them.

O-Ren wore a bright kosode patterned with autumn grass. Her hair had been gathered and bound with a red cord. She bowed to Nagai, exchanged a few quiet words with the musicians, and unfolded her fan.

Shimon had seen highly trained performers in Kyoto during childhood visits. Their art had been exact, polished, and held at a deliberate distance from the audience.

O-Ren possessed no such distance.

She began with a song about a woman waiting beside a river for a man who had gone to war. The drum marked the rhythm while her fan became a letter, a bird crossing the water, and at last the blade that had killed the absent lover. Grief shifted into mockery before the song ended and Shimon did not know what to make of the performance.

O-Ren’s gaze crossed Shimon’s, and he forgot the sake cup in his hand.

Tarō nudged him with an elbow. “Close your mouth.”

Nagai had seen the exchange. He said nothing, though his expression suggested that silence was a choice rather than mercy.

The gathering loosened as the sake circulated. Sano Hanzaemon complained about his sons. Gōtarō denied being troublesome, which prompted his father to list evidence. Shinnosuke defended himself against three accusations and admitted a fourth.

Tarō became drunk, but Nagai’s presence kept his mouth under tighter control than it had enjoyed at Shimon’s house. He neither accused anyone of being a yōma nor challenged Shinnosuke to correct the record.

Shimon drank steadily.

Nagai watched him finish another cup. “You carry sake well.”

The young man offered a thin-lipped smile. “My family considers it an inherited defense.”

Sano Hanzaemon laughed, and Nagai poured Shimon another measure.

The guests had approved of them, or at the very least, were tolerant of them before they left late. A household servant guided them through the upper gates, and the two samurai descended through town with their arms over one another’s shoulders because the road had developed an unreasonable tendency to move sideways.

Drunkenly, Shimon sang fragments of other songs from his world.

For a little while, he remembered tournament nights with his team: Jun shouting over everyone, Hana criticizing the food, Daigo playing the same old song until the rest of the car threatened mutiny.

A harsh cry crossed the moonlit sky and three dark shapes glided above the roofs, too broad-winged for birds. One carried a fish sideways in its beak.

Tarō squinted upward. “River devils.”

“Oh, that is what they are called,” Shimon responded half-drunkenly. 

“You do not have them where you are from?” the other man slurred.

“We do not have any more,” Shimon managed, evading a potential problem.

Kume looked as if he was studying, then he just shook his head. “That is a shame.”

They reached the lane where their roads divided. Tarō pointed toward a storehouse. “My house.”

Ayanojouji looked at him as if he were mad. “Your house is behind you.”

“I knew that,” Kume shot back.

Luckily, Genbei had come searching with a lantern. He took Tarō by the arm and steered him toward the correct street.

Shimon reached his own house, removed his swords, and lay down without properly folding his clothes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two shadows occupying the ceiling corners. One gathered above the storage alcove, and the second rested between the beams near the far wall.

The chip stirred helpfully, cutting through the alcohol haze.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL]

Signal Strength: LowMultiple interference points suspected

Shimon raised one hand toward them. “Go away.”

The nearer patch of darkness seemed to deepen, but Shimon had already closed his eyes. His dreams that night were full of figures hovering above the futon, speaking over him in voices too low to understand.

***

Shimon spent the next few days in town between training sessions having his looted armor altered to fit him properly and commissioning replacements wherever alteration proved impossible. By the end of it, he possessed a respectable if mismatched suit of black-lacquered plates, bound with white and deep-indigo cords in the Satomi manner, with the clan’s two-line crest painted discreetly upon the breast and shoulder guards. He was pleased with the result. It might even save him from a yōma’s claws or, more worryingly, from some overenthusiastic theropod that had no business existing, yet nevertheless seemed perfectly at home in this world. 

Then, Gōtarō arrived with a sealed order.

Nagai had summoned them to the inner enclosure.

They passed through the layered gates and followed the boy toward a closed building beside one of the storehouses. In the yard beyond, handlers maneuvered a feathered fukuiraptor into a timber pen using long forked poles. The animal struck the gate with its shoulder, shaking the entire frame before a hood was pulled over its eyes.

Two guards inspected the seal. Another looked closely at Shimon and Tarō before allowing them inside, leading them into a cellar.

The underground chamber had been arranged as a council chamber with Nagai at its head.

A broad Buddhist cleric in dark robes occupied the place to his right. Heavy prayer beads rested around one wrist. Beside him sat the shrine priest who had purified the forest, his white robes layered beneath pale blue and the ōnusa resting behind him.

A young woman knelt at the priest’s side with a brush and writing box. Her white kosode and red hakama identified her as a miko, a shrine maiden. She was close to Shimon’s age and attractive enough that his gaze caught before good judgment pulled it away.

Opposite them sat an old woman wrapped in several dark layers. Age had bent her back and folded lines into her face, but her eyes remained unnaturally bright. The smile she gave Shimon was sharp and acquisitive.

A thin young attendant knelt behind her. A wispy beard clung uncertainly to his chin. He adjusted her cushion, shifted her cup nearer, and waited with the patient submission of someone long accustomed to serving an unpredictable master.

Two scholars sat behind low desks crowded with paper. The elder had a long beard and ink ground permanently into his fingers. The younger was narrow-faced and attentive, his eyes moving over the warriors as though each carried a question written upon him.

Ten samurai occupied the walls.

One had burn scars across both hands. Another held his left leg stiffly before him. A third wore a patch over one eye, the scar running from his forehead to the corner of his mouth. A man near the rear saw Shimon and recoiled. His hand moved toward his sword. The color left his face before he forced himself still and lowered his eyes.

The old woman observed the reaction. Her smile widened.

Tarō knelt beside Shimon. “What was that?”

“I do not know,” Ayanokouji hissed back.

Two of the samurai closed the doors.

“This chamber does not appear in the castle records,” Nagai said. “What is spoken here remains here. What is written here remains under seal.”

His gaze passed over the warriors.

“Anyone who speaks carelessly places the castle and every village under its protection at risk. Anyone who sells what he learns will discover that loss of stipend is the smallest punishment available to my lord.”

No one asked him to elaborate.

Nagai indicated the Buddhist cleric. “Abbot Ryōzen of Nago-ji.”

The abbot inclined his head.

“Chief Priest Imbe Noritsuna, and Aya of his shrine,” he said looking at man in white robes and the attractive girl next to him.

The young miko bowed without ceasing to write.

“Kuze Sōtei, keeper and reader of several collections of old records; Abe Chikanori, who has spent more time than is healthy examining accounts of curses, abandoned villages, and improper burials.”

The younger scholar accepted the description as praise.

Nagai turned toward the old woman. “Kuroha of Ojima. Healer, midwife, diviner, finder of poisons, and teller of truths that men frequently spend coin on.”

Kuroha gave a dry laugh. Her attendant lowered his eyes.

“And you,” Nagai said, addressing the samurai, “are men who have encountered yōma and survived.”

The one-eyed warrior touched the cloth over his missing eye. “Some of us survived more completely than others.”

Nagai allowed that to pass.

“Attacks have increased,” he continued. “Travelers vanish from roads that were considered safe. Graves are opened. Livestock is found torn apart without being eaten. Houses are abandoned with food still in the pots. Creatures cross shrine ropes and warded boundaries that once held them back.”

His expression hardened.

“We also have a thing that wore the name Sakurai Iori, entered a commission through the Adventurer’s Za, signed under witness, and walked among armed men without being recognized.”

Aya’s brush moved rapidly, a frown crossing her pretty features.

“We do not know whether one cause lies behind every event. We do not know whether an enemy directs the yōma, encourages them, or merely understands how to profit from their appearance. This chamber is where we will answer those questions.”

He looked toward the priests and scholars.

“Those who read, pray, cleanse, calculate, and remember will compare what is known. Those who fight will report what they encounter, provided they return alive. Each survivor will be questioned before drink, fear, grief, and pride have time to improve the account.”

Several warriors shifted at that.

“What one man learns will be given to the others. If a creature fears fire, every fighter will know. If another follows blood, no patrol will discover it by losing its first wounded man. You will train separately and, when we have learned enough, together.”

Nagai rested his hands upon his knees. “You will also receive instruction in protective rites.”

A faint murmur moved through the warriors.

“Some of you already know fragments. The nine syllables. The seals formed with the hands. The lattice cut in the air with the sword-fingers. Written charms carried in armor or fixed over doors. Mountain practices, temple formulas, shrine purifications, and family rites whose meanings have been forgotten while their forms remain.”

Chief Priest Noritsuna took up the explanation. “Those are protections, not toys. The kuji without discipline may steady the mind, or it may do nothing. A seal copied without transmission is only a knot made with the fingers. Greater teachings require an oath and a teacher willing to answer for the student.”

Nagai nodded.

“Those judged suitable will sign a kishōmon before the kami and buddhas. The oath will bind secrecy and obedience. After that, the priests and other teachers may transmit what they consider safe.”

Tarō spoke carefully. “And what they consider unsafe?”

Abbot Ryōzen rolled one bead between his fingers. “Those teachings are usually the reason an oath is required.”

Nagai looked over the room.

“My lord has invested coin, men, records, and religious favor in this work. You are not heroes. You are an expensive answer to a question we do not yet understand. See that the expense returns something other than corpses.”

The debate began soon afterward.

Kuroha spoke first. “The yōma are the dead who have forgotten how to leave.”

Her voice was thin, but it carried without effort. “Men die with hunger, hatred, shame, or promises still bound to them. Some go where the dead should go. Some remain until the shape of the person rots away and only the wanting survives.”

Chief Priest Noritsuna shook his head. “Not every yōma was once human. Pollution gathers around blood, violated boundaries, defiled graves, broken oaths, and anger. Spirits caught within such corruption become distorted.”

Abbot Ryōzen moved another bead beneath his thumb. “If attachment and pollution explain them, why do proper rites sometimes fail?”

“Because proper rites are rarer than priests claim,” Kuroha accused, not looking at him.

Ryōzen smiled at her politely, but it contained no warmth.

Kuze Sōtei cleared his throat. “There are records of yōma appearing in valleys where no settlement stood and caves sealed before the local villages were founded.”

“Old deaths,” Kuroha replied.

Abe Chikanori leaned forward. “Then what of the creatures with human counterparts?”

The room quieted.

“Sakurai possessed a name, habits, speech, and sufficient memory to pass among men. Was he a dead man altered after death? A living man transformed? Or something that found a face and learned to use it?” Abe questioned.

No one offered an immediate answer, so Chikanori glanced toward the gathered warriors.

“I do not think the yōma are the battle itself. They are crows gathering above it before men realize where the bodies will fall. Their increase may warn of war, famine, a weakening boundary—or a hand deliberately preparing all three.”

The one-eyed samurai laughed bitterly. “I suppose crows pecked out my eye. I should have waved my arms harder.”

A few men smiled.

Abe bowed toward him. “What took it?”

The warrior touched the patch. “A woman with no mouth.”

The smiles vanished.

Abe reached for his brush. “Tell us.”

That began the interviews.

The warriors were taken one at a time into an adjoining room. Those waiting remained under guard and could not hear what was said.

When Shimon’s turn came, drawings covered the floor before the panel.

One showed a long creature with backward-bending limbs and a jaw divided almost to the throat. Another depicted a woman whose face ended in smooth skin beneath the nose. There was a child-shaped thing with too many joints, a black mass stretched across a roof, and a hand rising from the stones of a well.

Notes surrounded each image: place, date, weather, phase of the moon, wounds, smell, sound, number of witnesses, behavior before attack, and what had happened to the remains. The witnesses had been kept apart so that one account could not infect another.

Nagai sat at the center. “Begin at the boundary rope.”

Shimon told his story again and questions interrupted him constantly. Slowly, the account reached the moment Tarō struck the tree. From there, Shimon was the only surviving witness.

He described Sakurai pinned by Kuroda’s spear, Mizuno fighting with one ruined eye, and the grey creatures advancing. His account became less precise after Mizuno fell.

“I drew and struck them down,” Ayanokouji explained evenly, steeling himself under their collective gazes.

He could not explain how he had killed all four after the other fighters had fallen. Only that he survived. A samurai attributed his victory to the battle clarity that comes over some when desperation calls, a strange madness from which sometimes heroes are born. 

Kuze appeared willing to accept the confusion of battle combined with unusual skill and fortune. Abbot Ryōzen remained unreadable.

Nagai did not look convinced, and neither did Abe Chikanori. Kuroha, however, looked pleased.

***

A banquet followed the interviews.

Shimon sat between Tarō and the warrior who had recoiled when he first entered the council chamber.

The man introduced himself after the first cup of sake. “Matsunaga Heita.”

He was perhaps thirty, with a scar beneath his chin and restless fingers that worried at the edge of his cup. He avoided looking directly at Shimon.

Tarō noticed. “You know Ayanokouji?”

Heita’s fingers stopped. “No.”

“You looked as though you had seen him before.”

“No.”

The second answer came too quickly.

Shimon leaned closer. “Where?”

Heita finally met his eyes. Fear crossed his face before he looked away.

“Nowhere.”

He drank.

Shimon exchanged a glance with Tarō and let the matter rest.

The room grew louder as the night progressed. The one-eyed warrior, who introduced himself now as Kagawa Hachirō, sang a marching song. Abbot Ryōzen drank more than Shimon expected. The scholars argued over the reliability of burial records, and several warriors improved their own stories with each cup.

Kuroha drank nothing. Her attendant raised a small black vessel to her lips from time to time.

Eventually, bedding was brought into the room. Few men wished to negotiate the castle’s gates and steep roads after so much sake. The women and notables were led elsewhere.

Tarō fell asleep almost at once, and Matsunaga lay with his back toward Shimon.

Shimon watched the ceiling until his eyes closed.

A hand touched his shoulder. Looking blearily around, he saw that it was Kuroha’s attendant who knelt beside him. The young man raised one finger to his lips and gestured toward the door.

“The lady wishes to read your road,” the attendant explained.

“My road?”

“Your future. It is a great honor,” he insisted.

The phrase sounded more like a warning than an invitation. Refusing Kuroha might create trouble, however, and he had a feeling that she knew more than she should. So, Shimon took his short sword and followed.

The attendant led him through a moonlit corridor to a smaller room. Cloying incense reached him as the door opened.

Kuroha sat behind a single candle, a dark cloth spread before her. Upon it rested small bones inked with marks, black and white stones, knotted hemp cords, dried leaves, several teeth, folded papers, a bowl of water, and a bronze mirror darkened by age.

The attendant closed the door and remained behind Shimon.

Kuroha beckoned. “Sit.”

Shimon settled beyond easy reach.

“Would you know your future?” she offered.

He did not believe in fortune-telling, though recent experience had made disbelief less comfortable than it once was.

“I would not insult your art by refusing,” he responded diplomatically.

“A courtly answer,” the old woman scoffed.

“I have been taking lessons.”

The attendant made a soft sound behind him.

Kuroha gathered the bones and shook them between her hands. They clicked together while she muttered words the chip could not help him translate. Some resembled Buddhist syllables; others seemed to have no relation to any language Shimon knew.

She cast the bones onto the cloth and moved incense smoke across them with a black feather.

The room grew heavy.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED]

Signal Strength: ModeratePattern: StructuredSource: Unresolved

Kuroha studied the arrangement. “You are not like other men.”

That was vague enough to be worthless, and Shimon had to bite back a scathing reply.

“You are far from home.”

That required no divination.

“Yet you are not far,” she continued.

Shimon’s dismissal faltered ever so slightly.

“You stand beneath the same heaven and upon the same earth. The road between is longer than distance.”

She lifted the bronze mirror, and for an instant, the dark surface reflected fluorescent lights, rows of shelves, and mist moving through the New Kanda Archive. Then there was only candlelight.

“You miss those who have not yet been born.”

Shimon’s fingers tightened against his knees.

“Your brothers. Your father. The small beast waiting beside the door.”

Mochi.

“Your parents look for you. Your mother cries because she does not know where her seventh son has gone.”

“No,” he denied.

The word escaped before he could stop it. No one in this world knew he was the seventh son.

“Who told you?”

Kuroha ignored the question. “You will become a great man. You will stand beneath banners, and men will speak your name.”

The candle flame lengthened. “You will kill men. Many men. You will kill yōma. You will open doors that should remain closed and close others with blood.”

Shimon began to rise, but Kuroha’s hand shot across the cloth and closed around his wrist. She moved far too quickly for an old woman, so fast that even he could not react.

Her fingers were cold, not with age but with the same unnatural chill he remembered from the yōma flesh in the forest.

Her eyes shone through the incense. “You are his.”

The voice no longer belonged to one old woman. “He marked you. Claimed you.”

Something moved behind her face, as though Kuroha were a paper screen and several figures stood on the other side.

“But you could be ours as well,” the words came as if from more than one throat.

Kuroha smiled. “We could share you. Share in our power. We are not jealous.”

Orange text filled Shimon’s vision.

[PACT OFFERED]

Join Them?

Benefits: UnknownCost: Unknown

Accept?

He pulled back, but Kuroha’s grip held with impossible strength. A hand caught his robe from behind and dragged him away. Shimon turned, reaching for the short sword.

The attendant stood behind him, one fist knotted in the cloth of his robe. The young man’s face remained dutifully blank, but his eyes were alert.

“It is late,” the attendant explained smoothly. “The lady is tired. It is time for Ayanokouji-sama to leave.”

Kuroha released Shimon and sagged over the bones. The pressure in the room eased, but the orange screen remained.

Accept?

Shimon backed toward the door.

Kuroha raised her head. The greedy smile returned to her face.

Accept?

“No,” Shimon said aloud.

[PACT DECLINED]

The candle went out, and darkness filled the room, but not before he saw Kuroha’s smile widen.