Sorry it took so long!

Chapter 15 - The Road Back

“Victory belongs to those who possess the wisdom to choose their battles and exercise restraint when conflict serves no purpose n to fight and when not to fight.”

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Retreat, Shimon discovered, did not necessarily resemble defeat. The army stretched along the road for what seemed like miles, its formations bruised and badly mixed after the fighting at Kawamori-jō. But, it was not the rout he had envisaged. The marching order was kept, and wounded soldiers leaned upon companions or rode among the baggage. Those still fighting fit kept their weapons rather than abandoning them beside the road.

No one enjoyed a retreat, that part of men that valued ground more than lives saw to that. Still, Kawamori-jō had become a trap, and the Hōjō had thrown soldiers, assassins, fire, and yōma against them. Yett, the Satomi and Imagawa forces had escaped with their commanders alive, much of their strength intact, and enough discipline remaining to make pursuit dangerous. They had lost the castle, but the Hōjō had failed to destroy the army.

Shimon remained on a litter because every serious attempt to sit upright produced an unpleasant sensation. He could move his arms and legs without difficulty, and the chip had found nothing immediately life-threatening, but his entire body possessed a hollow weakness.

A familiar displayed itself across his vision.

[PASSIVE MONITORING ACTIVE]

Blood loss: Moderate / StabilizedMuscular fatigue: SevereNeural stress: ElevatedHydration: AdequateUnknown Carrier Signal: Low / PersistentRecommendation: Rest

Shimon had enthusiastically decided to obey its final recommendation. 

One soldier had been assigned to remain near him, although Shimon had not determined whether the man was intended as a guard or an attendant. Genpachi also stayed nearby whenever his duties allowed it, his injured arm wrapped in cloth that had begun the night white and was now mostly brown with dried blood.

The ashigaru leader had acquired a peculiar habit since the previous night. Every so often he looked toward Shimon, stared for several breaths, then glanced away before Shimon could meet his eyes. At first Shimon ignored it. By late morning it had become irritating enough that he was considering asking whether he had grown horns or some such.

Before he could, another familiar figure appeared farther down the column. Matsunaga Heita looked considerably worse in daylight than he had during the fighting. His wounded shoulder had been wrapped so thoroughly that half his upper body seemed constructed from bandages, and his injured arm remained secured against his chest. His skin had gone pale beneath the grime and the scar below his chin stood out sharply, but he was walking under his own power.

Shimon raised a hand as the other warrior approached. “You look terrible.”

A tired smile crossed Heita’s face. “I am pleased to see that nothing has improved your manners.”

“You look less terrible than I expected,” the young man corrected.

“That is better,” the other man replied with a nod before falling into step beside the litter and resting his good hand upon one of its carrying poles for several paces. For a while the two men simply regarded one another, and Shimon found himself unexpectedly glad to see him. During the fighting there had been too many moments when he had assumed one of them would not survive long enough for another conversation.

“I am glad you fought to survive,” Heita said eventually.

The words should have been comforting. Instead, they brought the pale field of reeds immediately back into Shimon’s memory. He remembered the colourless sky and, worst of all, the sensation of his own hands closing around the katana while another will moved them. Somewhere far away, his body had fought while he remained trapped in that empty place, able to feel what was happening without controlling any of it.

Shimon rubbed his right thumb against his fingers. “I did not do all of the fighting.”

Heita’s expression sharpened, and even Genpachi glanced over from the other side of the litter.

“It moved me,” Shimon continued quietly. “The thing you saw around me before. The one from the shrine.”

The displaced young man took a deep breath. “I was awake through it, if awake is the right word. I was somewhere else, but I could still feel what my body was doing. My hands moved, my feet moved, and I could feel the sword, except none of it was mine.”

Heita said nothing, simply nodding and leaving Shimon to continue at his own pace.

There were different kinds of fear, Shimon had learned since arriving in this world. There was the immediate terror of a blade coming toward his face, the colder expectation of knowing that yōma waited somewhere in the darkness, and the more ordinary anxiety of kneeling before a lord while uncertain whether he had used the correct form of address. What had happened at Kawamori was worse in a way he found difficult to explain. 

“You came back,” Heita stated simply, as if pronouncing a deep fact.

Shimon looked toward him before settling his head back against the folded cloth beneath it. “What happened afterward? I remember pieces, but most of what happened in the courtyard felt very far away.”

Genpachi immediately looked interested. “After?”

Shimon looked up to the cold blue of the sky. “After whatever that thing did to me.”

The levied warrior’s expression changed subtly. He straightened as if someone had unexpectedly asked him to testify before a lord. Heita noticed and gave him a suspicious look.

Genpachi cleared his throat. “Ayanokouji-sama, when the kami came upon you, the yōma were almost on us.”

Shimon considered objecting to the word kami, but decided that discussion could wait.

“You were standing before the line with your hand upon your sword,” Genpachi continued. “Your hands had been shaking before then. I saw them. We were all tired, but you looked as though another strong wind might have knocked you over. Then everything around you became still. The smoke moved everywhere else, but there was a space around you where the wind seemed to be waiting.”

Heita’s eyebrows rose at the common man’s sudden poetic turn of phrase. Shimon stared at Genpachi, who evidently interpreted the attention as encouragement.

“The first yōma came toward us, and you cut it without touching it. Your sword was here.” He indicated his waist with his good hand, then pointed several paces away. “The creature was there. It opened from its hip to its shoulder as though another blade had passed through the air.”

Shimon remembered all of this, if slightly differently, as if from a dream.

“Then another came from the side and lost both arms before it reached you. Then three came together. You waited until they were nearly upon you, drew once, and the air screamed.”

“It did?” Shimon replied, feigning surprise.

“Of course it did.”

“When I could see again, all three were on the ground in pieces. After that, the remaining yōma began moving away from you,” the older man explained emphatically.

That caught Shimon’s attention. “They retreated?”

Genpachi nodded knowingly. “You frightened them, if such things know fear. And if not, then you taught it to them.”

Grey Feeders had thrown themselves against spear walls, continued attacking after wounds that would have killed several ordinary men. The idea that those creatures possessed enough sense to become frightened was… Shimon had no words to describe it.

The ashigaru’s voice dropped. “Then you began following one of them toward the gate. We shouted, but you did not answer. Your eyes were open, although you looked through us rather than at us. When the last creature near the road fell, I put my hand upon your shoulder.”

Shimon’s stomach tightened.

“You moved when we pushed you in the proper direction,” Genpachi continued, “so two of us guided you out through the gate. Once we reached the road, we found a litter among the wounded and put you on it. You remained sitting upright for a time. Then whatever was holding you seemed to leave, and you collapsed so suddenly that I thought you had died.”

Genpachi took a breath, letting his thoughts fall into some semblance of order.

“You were breathing,” he added. “So we carried you. The last men came through behind us, and I gathered whoever could still march before we went after the main column.”

Shimon studied the bruised face of the ashigaru leader. “You led them out?”

Genpachi appeared uncomfortable with the attention. “Someone had to.”

“How many?”

“Perhaps thirty when we finally caught the others. Some were from my own group, some wounded men, and others had lost their officers,” he stated.

Shimon had not known that. During the last moments he remembered, Genpachi had simply been another competent ashigaru leader trying to hold together frightened men. After Shimon lost control of himself, the same man had apparently gathered the remnants and brought them out.

“Thank you,” Shimon said.

Genpachi blinked. “Ayanokouji-sama?”

Shimon did not look at him. “For getting me out.”

The ashigaru looked genuinely puzzled by the need for gratitude. “You remained so that the rest of us could leave. You had already done enough.”

Heita murmured somewhat in agreement.

Shimon decided that arguing with both men at once would achieve nothing. “What happened after you caught the army? We broke through, but what then?”

“That part I know better,” Heita said. “I was farther forward with the priests.”

Genpachi surrendered the account easily, and Heita adjusted the binding supporting his wounded arm before continuing. “The breakthrough worked almost as planned. The Mitsuzuno smashed through what the Hōjō had placed across the approach, and the mounted companies widened the opening before they could close it. They lost men doing so, but the road remained open long enough for the infantry to pass.”

“And the Mitsuzuno kept running.”

“So I heard.”

“Genpachi believes it found a happy ending in some field or forest.”

“That would be a respectable retirement,” the young man said wryly.

Genpachi nodded solemnly. “A three-horn deserves good grass and leaves.”

Shimon decided against explaining that where he came from triceratops had been extinct for approximately sixty-six million years and therefore had no conventional retirement expectations. He did not feel it would be conducive to the conversation.

“Once the main body reached the river,” Heita continued, “the officers formed a defensive line on the banks rather than allowing the army to keep moving. Archers took the higher ground, spearmen blocked the ford, and the wounded and baggage crossed behind them.”

Shimon remembered the crossing from the march, with ropes stretched between posts and broad shallows divided by gravel bars. It was good defensive ground provided an army had time to establish itself.

“How bad were our losses?”

Heita considered the question. “Bad. I do not have a number, and anyone claiming an exact number this morning is lying. Companies are still counting their men. We lost many in the castle and more during the breakout, but the army still exists. Most of the banners that marched north are somewhere in this column still.”

“So it was not…” Shimon hesitated, searching for a term that would translate usefully. “Not a victory that cost us the army.”

There was a prgnant pause.

“Not pyrrhic,” Shimon muttered to himself in English.

Heita gave him a confused look. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ayanokoujin said with a sigh.

He had become sufficiently familiar with that answer to ignore it.

“The Hōjō followed us toward the river,” Heita continued. “Not closely at first. They had been hurt during the breakout and did not know whether we meant to turn on them. By the time they came forward in strength, our men had formed.”

“Who commanded the crossing?”

“The Imagawa retainer from the storehouses took charge of the rearguard after Nagai-sama moved on with the main body.”

Shimon immediately remembered the hard-faced warrior trapped with perhaps forty men between two burning buildings while Grey Feeders tore apart his formation. “The one we helped?”

“The very same.”

Something about that pleased Shimon more than he expected.

The young man smiled. “And the hunters?”

Heita became more reserved. “Most of those still living are wounded. Seki was left at the river because his leg made marching difficult and his mouth remained entirely undamaged.”

Shimon smiled faintly. “That sounds dangerous.”

Heita allowed a ghost of a smile to reach his face. “Nagai-sama decided that if Seki could not fight, he could at least instruct the companies at the crossing. He spent much of the morning shouting at spearmen about where to place their points and reminding them that yōma do not care whether a man is frightened.”

“That sounds like Seki,” Shimon commented.

“The surviving men of the second cell were in poor condition. Those who could still stand had fought most of the night. No one objected when Seki took the work.”

Shimon hesitated before asking the question that had been waiting behind all the others. “Kagawa?”

Heita’s face changed slightly. “I have not seen him.”

“He was alive before the withdrawal. He was with the wounded.”

“But you have not heard that he crossed?” the young man questioned.

“No. No, I have not,” the other man concluded.

The road seemed louder around them for several moments. Sandals ground against earth, harness bells knocked together, and somewhere nearby an injured man cursed as his litter shifted.

Shimon remembered Kagawa sitting against a wall with thick cloth wrapped around what remained of his face, furious with anyone who tried to touch him. He remembered Kurobane attempting to maul the men who tried to saddle it without its usual rider.

“He could be elsewhere in the column,” Genpachi offered. “There are thousands of men.”

“Yes,” Heita said.

It was possible, perhaps even likely, but none of them found enough certainty in the thought to take comfort from it. Everyone knew that a blind man was less than useless in an army.

Shimon had the cruel thought that Kagawa had literally gone through all of his chances as he looked toward the sky again. “What happened when the Hōjō reached the river?”

“They tested the line twice,” Heita replied. “The first attack was most confused. Our defense was not. The second was stronger, but by then more archers had formed and they could not force the ford without accepting serious losses. They had also spent much of the night dealing with their own dead and whatever yōma remained around Kawamori.”

The young man breathed out. “So they stopped?”

“They became healthily cautious. We were happy to encourage the habit,” the other man answered in a deadpan tone.

That seemed to Shimon like the best strategic development of the failed campaign as he looked at the men passing around him. Their armor was filthy, their clothes burned or torn, and many marched with wounds that had not yet been properly treated, but the Hōjō were far enough behind that no one could hear them.

“We actually got out,” he said stupidly with a sigh, cursing himself for stating the obvious.

“Yes,” Heita replied.

There was something almost offensive about the simplicity of it. They had taken a castle, survived an assassination attempt, fought yōma through burning streets, broken through a besieging army, crossed the river again, and formed a defensive line strong enough to discourage pursuit. Now they were walking home.

“The men are talking about the lord’s standard,” Heita said.

Despite himself, the young man winced. “Imagawa’s?”

“Everyone saw it, or enough men did that the rest have heard about it.”

Shimon remembered the standard rising through the smoke while guards struck spear butts against the wooden platform and Imagawa stood beneath it with his sword raised. At a moment when thousands of frightened soldiers had begun to suspect their leaders were dead, simply proving otherwise had been enough to restore some degree of order.

“The story improves every time I hear it,” Heita continued. “Yesterday, Imagawa-sama raised his standard and rallied the army. This morning, he personally fought his way through twenty assassins before appearing upon the platform.”

“I expect by tomorrow he will have been alone,” Shimon scoffed.

Genpachi made a thoughtful sound. “A lord alone against twenty shinobi is a better story.”

“There is also a story that the assassins reached Nagai-sama and Lord Imagawa saved him,” Heita added.

Shimon sat up slightly before dizziness reminded him why he was still on a litter. “He saved Nagai?”

“So the story says.”

“But Imagawa was not even in the room when it began.”

The corner of Heita’s mouth twitched.

Shimon lay back down with more irritation than necessary. “We had something of a hand in all that.”

“A small one, according to the accounts.”

Shimon looked suspiciously toward him.

Heita allowed him to suffer for several breaths before continuing. “The army is also speaking about the swordsman who fought with the spirit of a kami and killed a hundred yōma by himself.”

Shimon stopped complaining. “What?”

Genpachi suddenly became very interested in the road.

Heita maintained a perfectly serious expression. “Some say the wind followed his sword. Others say no creature could come within ten paces of him without being cut apart. I heard one man claim that the yōma recognized him and fled because they knew his name.”

“There were six,” Shimon repeated.

“Six that died immediately,” Genpachi conceded, before he scratched his cheek. “I may have said seven when some of the men asked.”

Shimon stared at him.

“Possibly eight,” he added with a shrug. “Memories elude me. Such is the way of things.”

“You told them I killed eight of the monsters?”

The wounded samurai lost his struggle and began laughing.

Shimon looked between them in disbelief. “That is your defense?”

“I was tired.”

“You added more yōma because you were tired?”

“There was considerable smoke. There is the confusion of battle,” the ashigaru leader insisted.

Heita laughed hard enough to hurt himself and folded slightly around his bandages with a grimace.

Shimon pointed at him. “This is not funny.”

“It is a little funny.”

Shimon attempted to sit upright properly, intending to make his argument with greater dignity, but the road moved beneath him in a slow and unpleasant wave. His stomach appeared to remain in one place while the rest of him drifted elsewhere, so he lowered himself carefully back to the litter.

Heita’s amusement disappeared. “You are tiring.”

“I am fine, ”Shimon replied. “You have all become very irritating.”

“I survived. It has given me confidence.”

The answer sounded sufficiently like something Tarō might have said that Shimon almost smiled.

“I will rest for a little while,” the young man acceded.

“Good.”

However, Shimon intended to remain awake long enough to prove that sleeping had been his own decision.

The next thing he heard was drums.

***

They rolled across the countryside in measured beats. Shimon opened his eyes to discover that the landscape had changed while he slept. Houses stood closer together now, fields divided the ground beyond them into familiar blocks, and civilians lined parts of the road to watch the army return. Some bowed as banners passed, most, however, did not.

“They are beating us in,” Genpachi explained.

Shimon rubbed sleep from his face. “How long was I out?”

“Most of the afternoon.”

That counted as somewhat more than a little while, Shimon thought.

The army approached the castle in fragments rather than as the magnificent column that had departed. The first formations had arrived long before Shimon woke, while the tail stretched so far behind that the drums sounded repeatedly as each new body of soldiers approached the outer muster grounds. Shimon remained on the litter until the castle town came properly into view. Then pride overruled medical advice.

“I am walking,” he declared.

The soldier assigned to remain with him looked alarmed. “Ayanokouji-dono—”

“I am not entering the town lying down,” he added with a wince.

Genpachi considered him for a moment and, rather than arguing, handed him a water gourd.

Shimon drank deeply. The water was warm and tasted faintly of wood, but when he stood, the world remained more or less where it belonged. His legs felt weak rather than unreliable, which he judged acceptable. He walked beside Genpachi while the empty litter was carried away for someone who needed it more. The ashigaru leader remained close enough to catch him without making the precaution obvious, an act of tact Shimon appreciated enough not to mention.

The army was directed into the broad muster grounds outside the keep rather than allowed to dissolve immediately into the castle town. Tents had already appeared across the field, and more were being raised as each new formation arrived. Officers shouted company names while clerks sat behind low tables recording the living, the wounded, and those who had failed to return. Cooking fires were being lit everywhere.

No summons awaited him. After some searching, a minor official found Shimon’s name among several lists and informed him that men under medical orders could return to their assigned homes unless specifically required by their commanders. Shimon accepted this before anyone reconsidered.

He looked at Genpachi. “Come with me.”

The ashigaru blinked. “Ayanokouji-sama?”

“My house is closer than wherever they intend to put you,” he invited.

The other man looked troubled. “I should find my unit.”

Genpachi continued in his hesitation.

“You spent last night dragging me out of a burning castle,” Shimon added. “I can probably feed you at least once before my stores run out.”

This appeared sufficient to overcome the man’s resistance, although not his discomfort, and they left the muster field together.

The streets nearest Shimon’s house were filled with people waiting for husbands, sons, brothers, tenants, and masters to return. Every new group of soldiers caused heads to turn. Some families rushed forward when they recognized familiar faces. Others watched until the men passed and then settled back into waiting. Shimon tried not to think about what would happen when the final formations came through, and some families were still standing beside the road.

His own gate appeared around a bend, and Kiyo saw him first. The servant woman had been standing outside with several other householders, and for once her composure disappeared completely.

“Ayanokouji-sama!” she half-shouted as she hurried forward. 

She stopped herself before familiarity became improper, and bowed so deeply that Shimon became embarrassed on her behalf.

Genbei emerged from the courtyard carrying a piece of firewood. The grizzled servant stared at Shimon for several moments before setting it aside and bowing as well.

“I came back,” Shimon said, feeling that the statement sounded foolish as soon as it left his mouth.

Kiyo straightened and looked him over carefully, taking in the torn clothing, bruises, dried blood, and the empty place where his enormous ōdachi should have risen above his shoulder.

“So you did,” she replied deferentially.

There was enough feeling behind the simple answer that Shimon wisely left it alone. Genpachi bowed to both servants with the awkwardness of a man uncertain whether he should consider himself a guest or a soldier temporarily under another household’s roof.

Kiyo looked toward him, but before Shimon could perform an introduction, the ashigaru did so himself.

“This is the household of Ayanokouji Shimon-sama?”

Kiyo looked momentarily confused. “Yes.”

Genpachi straightened. “Then you are honored to serve a great warrior.”

Shimon closed his eyes. Of course, he thought, wincing on the inside.

Kiyo immediately brightened. “A great warrior?”

“He stood against the yōma when the rest of us thought the road lost to us,” the ashigaru continued, gaining enthusiasm. “The wind followed his sword. I saw six creatures fall before him.”

“Six?” Kiyo breathed.

“At least,” the unctuous man confirmed.

Genbei gave Shimon a long examination, then bowed again, this time more deeply, while Kiyo made a small appreciative sound. Shimon wanted a bath, food, and at least two days in which no one mentioned yōma. Instead, he pointed toward Genpachi.

“Get a futon ready for my friend.”

Silence followed, and Genpachi’s expression changed so completely that Shimon wondered whether he had accidentally insulted the man’s ancestors.

The ashigaru bowed immediately. “Ayanokouji-sama, you must not say such things of one so unworthy.”

Shimon stared at him. “What things?”

Genpachi remained bowed.

Kiyo gave Shimon the look of someone watching a socially incompetent child approach a deep well. Understanding, of course, came slowly. Shimon possessed a house, servants, the right to wear two swords. Genpachi was an ashigaru squad leader who had spent most of his life obeying men of Shimon’s nominal rank. Calling him a friend in front of household servants had crossed a social distance Shimon had briefly forgotten existed.

Wonderful.

“I meant no offense,” Shimon said.

Genpachi raised his head quickly. “None was taken.”

“You look as though I struck you.”

“No, Ayanokouji-sama.”

“I am tired, and my head is not working properly. Forgive me for making you uncomfortable.”

This somehow made the ashigaru even less comfortable.

Kiyo intervened with the practiced smoothness of someone rescuing her master from himself. “We will make a comfortable place for Genpachi-san near the kitchen hearth. There is food enough for another man.”

Genpachi bowed gratefully. “That is more kindness than I deserve.”

Shimon decided against explaining that he had slept on friends’ floors after gaming events with far less ceremony. “Good. Do that,” he instead ordered.

Kiyo ushered him inside before he could further damage the social order.

He ate without remembering much of the meal. Rice, soup, vegetables, and fish disappeared with astonishing speed while Kiyo attempted, with limited success, to question him about the campaign. Shimon answered perhaps every third question. Genpachi ate in the kitchen and, judging by what drifted through the doorway, was already improving the story for Genbei.

Eventually Shimon reached his chamber. The futon had been prepared, and his swords had been placed nearby, although the broken ōdachi had not returned with the baggage and perhaps never would. Its absence disturbed him more than he expected. Only weeks earlier he had considered the weapon absurdly large and inconvenient; now the space where it should have rested made the room feel incomplete.

It would need to be replaced, he decided. He came to the conclusion that ancestral swords were, by battle’s proof, a farce. If a sword saw true battle, it would, like any other tool, break. Thus if any family had an ancestral sword, it would be ceremonial at best.

He lay down, and his chip immediately produced another notification.

[ANOMALOUS VISUAL INPUT DETECTED]

Augmented projection: InactiveKnown overlay: NoneExternal correspondence detectedReference comparison available

Shimon stared at the ceiling. “Not now. No thank you.”

The chip, being incapable of appreciating tone, continued.

[REFERENCE COMPARISON]

ALTAR ENTITY A: High correspondenceALTAR ENTITY B: Moderate-to-high correspondence

Shimon turned his head slowly toward the corner. Two things watched him. The first crouched near the storage alcove with its knees drawn close to a narrow body covered in dark hair that shifted although the room was still. Its arms were longer than Aya had drawn them, the thin fingers resting against the floor with too many joints, while a pale mask-like face projected from the darkness beneath its hair. Three eyes looked back at him.

The second presence folded itself into the space above and behind the first. Branch-like structures extended from its head toward the ceiling beams, although Shimon could not decide whether they were antlers, or truly branches. Its body bent in too many places while somehow occupying less space than its proportions required. It had one eye and no visible mouth.

Shimon remained still.

They no longer resembled the crude reconstructions his chip had created from Aya’s paintings and Heita’s testimony. Those had carried the flattened assumptions of brush and paper, as though the spirits belonged to an old painted scroll. These possessed depth. He could distinguish individual strands in the smaller creature’s moving hair and minute irregularities across its pale face. The taller thing’s limbs passed behind one another, bent, and emerged from angles that caused the chip repeatedly to attempt correcting their perspective.

Whatever had changed in Shimon’s spiritual perception, it had made the world considerably less convenient. The chip, it seemed, had adapted to this world’s unconventional emanations.

[VISUAL DATA SOURCE CONFIRMED]

Input present in direct sensory stream.Not generated by augmented display.

“Wonderful,” he whispered.

Neither spirit moved toward him. They simply watched.

Shimon considered finding Heita. He considered finding Noritsuna. He briefly considered shouting for Genpachi, then rejected the idea because it would make him look bad, would lose him face. The ashigaru had spent half the day convincing everyone that Shimon was some sort of divinely assisted swordsman. In the end, exhaustion made the decision for him.

“If you are going to kill me,” he murmured, “do it quietly.”

The three-eyed creature tilted its head.

Shimon pulled the covers over himself and closed his eyes. He had reached the stage where supernatural terror was the baseline emotional state. Against the odds, sleep took him within minutes.

***

Morning arrived with both spirits gone. Shimon regarded the empty corner for some time before his chip confirmed that nothing unusual was in the vicinity. This reassured him only slightly, for the biochip was limited by the host’s senses—which in this case was a certain displaced professional gamer.

Genpachi had slept beside the kitchen fire and appeared almost offended by how well he had rested. Kiyo fed both men before they left, and the ashigaru attempted three separate times to thank Shimon for the meal and the sleeping place. Shimon eventually threatened to make him stay another night if he thanked him again, which proved unexpectedly effective.

They returned to the muster ground together. The chaos of the previous evening had become organized chaos. Unit banners marked sections of the field, surgeons and priests moved among the wounded, and clerks continued revising their lists as men appeared who had previously been recorded missing.

Genpachi spotted several members of his company near a group of tents, and his face changed immediately. One soldier shouted his name, while another came forward grinning despite a bandage wrapped around half his head.

The olderman looked pointedly toward Shimon.

“Go,” Shimon told him.

The ashigaru bowed. “Ayanokouji-sama.”

Genpachi bowed again before turning toward his men, where one struck him across the shoulders and another embraced him. Shimon watched all of this unfold for a moment before continuing toward the administrative tents.

A minor official with ink on his fingers found his name, confirmed that he had already been examined during the withdrawal, and informed him that he was released from immediate duty until summoned.

“Nagai-sama?” Shimon asked.

“In the keep,” the official replied succinctly.

“Lord Imagawa?” the young man questioned quickly.

“With Lord Satomi and the senior council.”

“Can I report?”

The clerk looked meaningfully at the lines of wounded men waiting to be recorded. “If they require you, Ayanokouji-sama, they know where you live.”

This was the bureaucratic language Shimon understood in any century. In any world. He bowed, just enough to show politeness without deference, and went away.

Rather than return home, he searched for the sick tents. He found Heita first. The spiritually sensitive warrior sat bare to the waist while a physician and assistant removed the bandaging around his shoulder. The wound looked unpleasant but clean, a deep cut across the upper shoulder that had narrowly avoided doing permanent damage. Free of infection.

Heita noticed Shimon looking. “The physician says I will live.”

The physician grunted. “The physician says you will live if you stop moving the arm as though nothing happened.”

Heita looked mildly chastened.

The older man cleaned the wound with boiled water and something that smelled sharply alcoholic before laying fresh cloth over it. Heita endured the process without complaint, although his jaw tightened whenever the binding was pulled firm.

“How long?” Shimon asked.

“Before he can fight properly?” the physician replied. “Weeks, if the gods are kind and he possesses enough intelligence to leave the wound alone. But… I have heard there are other methods.”

Heita sighed.

“Months, then,” Shimon said, feeling perturbed.

The physician laughed a hollow laugh.

Tarō occupied a bed farther inside. The surviving Kume looked considerably healthier than he had any right to. His side had been bound beneath a clean robe and a grey cast remained beneath his skin from blood loss, but his eyes were open and alert.

His first words upon seeing Shimon were, “You are walking.”

“So are you, usually.”

Tarō ignored the answer. “I heard you killed ten yōma.”

Shimon turned slowly toward Heita. The wounded warrior found his fresh bandages suddenly fascinating.

“Six,” Shimon said with a sigh.

Tarō considered this. “Ten sounds better. A more auspicious number.”

“Everyone appears to have decided so.”

Taro nodded thoughtfully. “It is a respectable number.” 

Shimon sat beside the bed. For a moment the humor left him as he remembered Tarō throwing himself into the attack meant for him, the claws striking his armor and the blood spreading beneath the broken plates.

“Thank you.”

Tarō’s expression tightened, as though gratitude were another sort of wound. “You already thanked me.”

“I did not.”

“You told me the debt was paid.”

“That is not the same thing,” Shimon insisted.

“It was enough.”

For several moments they looked at one another, neither particularly skilled at finding a comfortable direction for the conversation.

Tarō eventually cleared his throat. “You could bring sake.”

Shimon blinked.

“For the pain,” the wounded man added. “It is important that one is reminded that one is alive.”

“The physicians allow that? Isn’t pain a good enough reminder that one one is alive?”

“No, it is not,” the other man refuted. “But, then again, they are not the ones in pain.”

Shimon glanced toward the physician treating Heita, who was currently occupied scolding another soldier. “What kind?”

Tarō looked offended. “Sake.”

“I understand the category.”

“A jar would be suitable,” he added.

“I will send you one,” Shimon said with a sigh.

Tarō immediately looked healthier. But, before Shimon could say anything else, the castle drums began again. Every head in the tent turned toward the sound. The first beat rolled through the canvas, followed by another in the same measured pattern Shimon had heard the previous evening. Men outside began shouting.

Heita looked toward the entrance. “The rearguard.”

Shimon stood, and Tarō unwisely attempted to do the same.

The physician appeared as though summoned by disobedience itself and pointed at him. “No.”

“I only want to see.”

“You may see from the bed,” the healer chided.

“There is canvas in the way.”

“Then exercise your imagination.”

Tarō muttered something deeply disrespectful about healers.

Shimon and Heita went outside. The muster ground had come alive. Soldiers moved toward the edge of the field, and those healthy enough to stand gathered beside the route leading in from the town. The rearguard entered beneath battered standards to a loud and welcome reception.

They had remained behind after everyone else crossed the river, and the army knew it. Men shouted greetings, struck spear shafts against the ground, and called the names of companies as they recognized them. Some of the returning soldiers looked embarrassed by the attention, while others grinned through grime and bandages.

A number were being carried. Seki Jūzō arrived upon a litter with his injured leg stretched stiffly before him. He looked positively furious about it. Shimon raised one hand and waved in greeting.

Seki saw him, stared for a moment, then pointed toward the men carrying him. “Tell these idiots I can walk.”

One of the bearers answered before Shimon could. “He cannot.”

Seki looked toward Shimon. “You see what I endured?”

The young man grinned. “Heroically.”

The broad warrior narrowed his eyes, uncertain whether he was being mocked. Then, his bearers carried him into the sick tent despite his vocal protestations.

The reunion that followed was less dignified than the army’s welcome. Tarō immediately demanded to know whether Seki had brought food. Seki asked whether the yōma had damaged Tarō’s brain as well as his side. Heita settled nearby with his newly bound arm, while Shimon found a place among them.

Once a proper healer had examined Seki’s leg and confirmed that no further damage had been done, the broad spearman finally explained what had happened at the crossing.

“The Hōjō thought darkness had done half their work for them,” he said. “They followed expecting to find men running. Instead they found a spear line.”

“How close did they come?” Shimon asked.

“The first time? Close enough that we could hear their officers threatening men forward. They came into the shallows with spears and bows, but our men held the southern bank. The archers drove them back before enough crossed to matter.”

Ayanokouji narrowed his eyes. “And the yōma?”

Seki rubbed the bandage around his injured leg. “None reached us.”

Heita looked surprised. “None?”

“We heard them,” Seki explained as his expression became grimly satisfied. “Then Hōjō heard them too.”

He described darkness beyond the ford broken occasionally by torches and shouting. The Hōjō had gathered for another attempt when screaming began somewhere behind their forward companies. Men turned and orders changed. A formation preparing to attack the Satomi instead began withdrawing from the river.

“One of our archers swore he saw a Grey Feeder among them,” Seki continued. “I saw nothing clearly enough to swear before a lord, but something had them fighting behind their own line.”

Shimon remembered the creatures retreating deeper into Kawamori-jō. “They may have come out through another tunnel,” he posited half-jokingly.

“Perhaps. Whatever happened, the Hōjō became considerably less interested in crossing.”

There was no sympathy in Seki’s voice. “They tried again near dawn. That attack was better organized, but by then we were ready. The spearmen held the shallows and the archers knew their distances. The Imagawa retainer kept men in reserve behind the crossing, so whenever one part weakened, he replaced it rather than allowing the line to bend.”

“The one from the storehouses?”

Seki nodded. “He commands well.”

Shimon stored the observation away. “How long did you remain there?”

“Another day. Scouts watched the northern bank. The Hōjō pulled farther back and stopped pretending they wanted the crossing badly enough to pay for it. Once we were certain they would not attack again, we withdrew by companies.”

The broadshouldered man smiled. “Very slowly, apparently.”

Shimon found himself relieved once more despite all of it. The army had retreated. Fujita was dead, others were missing, and men around them carried wounds they might remember for the rest of their lives if infection and bad fortune allowed them to have one. 

Yet the Hōjō had failed to destroy them. Shimon almost allowed himself to believe that this might count as success. Almost.

***

He left the wounded to their treatment shortly afterward and found a man waiting outside the tent. Shimon recognized him only after seeing the damaged crest upon the helmet he carried beneath one arm. The Imagawa retainer from the burning storehouses had cleaned most of the blood from his armor, although a bandage crossed the side of his head.

The man bowed, and Shimon immediately bowed in return, uncertain which of them properly outranked the other and unwilling to experiment.

“Ayanokouji.”

“My lord,” he replied curtly.

The retainer regarded him for several moments. “My men told me what happened after we separated.”

Shimon waited.

“You preserved many of them,” the other man enunciated carefully.

The choice of words did not escape him. My men, rather than me. The retainer had been trapped within the same collapsing formation when Shimon and Tarō arrived, but admitting openly that another warrior had saved him would create a personal obligation. Personal obligations had weight in this period.

“They reformed quickly,” Shimon replied. “Once they had a line, they fought well.”

A small amount of tension left the retainer’s expression. “You speak generously.”

“It is true,” the young man said flatly.

Ayanokouji was not a complete barbarian. He understood well enough to leave a man some face.

The man bowed again. “I will tell Imagawa-sama what I saw of your courage.”

Shimon searched for an answer that neither rejected the praise nor sounded pleased by it. “Your men carried the greater part of it.”

The retainer’s mouth moved slightly. Perhaps Shimon had finally said something correct.

The other man paused for half a breath. “We shall speak again.”

“I would be honored,” Ayanokouji replied in a deadpan voice.

The man departed in the direction of the inner castle, and Shimon watched him go and wondered how much of his life was currently being discussed by powerful people inside rooms where he was not permitted. Probably too much.

***

Nothing happened for three days. After the previous week, Shimon regarded this as a gift from the gods. In this case, all eight million of them—the yaoyorozu. 

The army remained encamped around the castle while companies were reorganized and losses continually counted. Not all the wounded made it. Messengers came and went continuously, the wounded filled every suitable building near the keep, and preparations began for the funerals of those whose bodies had been recovered.

Shimon spent most of his time between his house and the sick tents. He delivered Tarō’s sake personally. Kiyo objected when she discovered where it was going. The physician objected more strongly when Shimon arrived with it, but could do nothing against his rank.

Ayanokouji greeted Genpachi whenever he encountered him among the soldiers, but the ashigaru had grown somewhat distant despite everything. And, by the third day, one soldier had even earnestly asked whether it was true that Shimon’s sword had cut through the castle wall.

Seki eventually acquired a crutch and used it badly. Heita’s shoulder continued healing without fever. Tarō remained confined to his bed, although had begun to improve in pallor.

Their first meal together after the campaign took place at Shimon’s house where Kiyo prepared enough food for twice their number. Tarō had originally been invited, but the physician refused to release. Shimon sent a portion to him under guard and ate with Seki and Heita instead. Heita picked at his food, but Seki consumed rice with the solemn efficiency of a man performing necessary labor. 

After finishing his first bowl, he looked toward the kitchen. “You have good servants.”

Kiyo called back immediately. “I can hear you.”

Seki paused. “Excellent servants.”

The conversation wandered through the campaign without settling into seriousness for long. Seki complained about the second Hōjō attack at the river. Shimon complained about nothing. Heita contributed little. And for perhaps an hour, they spoke simply as men.

Then suddenly, Heita stopped eating which Shimon noticed at once. The scar-chinned warrior’s eyes had moved past him, not toward the door or garden, but upward. Shimon knew what he would find before he turned his head.

The two spirits occupied the far side of the room. The smaller of them crouched beside the wall, its three eyes moving between the men around the table. The taller presence folded itself into the shadows near the ceiling, its single eye fixed upon Shimon. They were clearer again, and he could now see them without assistance from the chip, although focusing directly upon either caused an unpleasant pressure behind his eyes.

Seeing nothing, Seki continued eating.

Shimon looked back toward Heita, and for several moments neither spoke. The other man’s gaze moved from the spirits to Shimon, then back again, before one eyebrow rose. The young samurai gave the smallest possible nod, and something close to understanding passed across Heita’s face.

Seki looked between them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Shimon and Heita stated, their voices almost in sync. said.

Seki regarded them with deep suspicion. “I think I dislike it when the two of you agree.”

Kiyo entered with more soup, dissolving the momentary tension. And by the time Shimon looked toward the corner again, the two strange watchers had disappeared.

Heita did not mention them until he left. 

At the gate, with Seki already hobbling along the road ahead, the spiritually sensitive warrior stopped beside Shimon. “You see them now.”

“Yes,” the younger man admitted.

“For how long?”

Shimon closed his eyes for a moment. “Since I came home.”

Heita’s fingers moved to the scar beneath his chin. “They are clearer around you.”

Shimon glanced back through the gate toward his house. “That part I had chosen not to notice.”

“You should,” Heita advised as he gave him a grave nod and walked after Seki.

Shimon remained outside for several breaths before returning indoors. He instructed Kiyo to leave an extra lamp burning that night, and he did not explain why.

***

Nagai’s summons arrived the following morning. The messenger carried orders not only for Shimon but for every surviving member of the hunting unit capable of being moved, together with the soldiers who had fought under their direction at Kawamori-jō. The latter requirement making the gathering considerably larger than their previous debriefings.

When Shimon reached the concealed council chamber, men already filled the corridor outside. Some wore bandages, one leaned upon a borrowed spear because his leg would not support him properly, and Genpachi stood among several ashigaru Shimon recognized from the final withdrawal.

Seki arrived upon his crutch. Heita came with his wounded arm still supported beneath his robe. Tarō appeared last, carried on a litter and complaining so consistently that Shimon found the sound reassuring. Kagawa did not appear, and no one commented upon his absence.

Fujita’s absence was different. His place among them had become an established emptiness, one everyone understood and avoided looking at for too long.

Nagai entered after the men had settled. 

The senior retainer looked tired. It was perhaps the first time Shimon had ever seen him that way. His clothing remained immaculate, his posture precise, and nothing about his movements had lost their measured control, yet the lines beside his eyes appeared deeper than before the campaign.

He stood before the gathered soldiers. “You did well.”

No one smiled.

“That was praise,” Nagai clarified.

Several men immediately attempted to look pleased.

“Kawamori-jō was lost,” Nagai continued. “I will not insult you by pretending otherwise. We spent men and wealth taking a position we no longer hold, and the Hōjō will undoubtedly call that victory. They are welcome to that interpretation.”

His gaze moved over the room. “They attempted to destroy an army whose commanders had been attacked, whose quarters were burning, and whose defenses had been penetrated by yōma released within the walls. They failed. Our ally Lord Imagawa lives. The greater part of our army returned. The withdrawal crossed the river in order, and the rearguard prevented effective pursuit.”

His attention settled upon the wounded hunters. “That happened in part because men trained for one purpose did what they had been trained to do.”

The room became very still. Shimon could not help the thought that they had been trained to fight demons, not men.

“The project was created because ordinary formations repeatedly failed against yōma, not because ordinary soldiers lacked courage, but because courage without knowledge merely allows a man to die closer to the enemy,” Nagai steamrolled on.

Shimon glanced toward Seki. The broad warrior appeared carved from stone.

“At Kawamori, you took men who had never knowingly faced such creatures, formed them behind spear points, and taught them enough to survive. Those soldiers then taught others. At the river crossing, the same instructions were used again.”

Abe would enjoy that, Shimon thought. Repeatable results.

“The method works,” Nagai said. “Imperfectly and expensively, but it works. Therefore we improve it. Every mistake will be recorded. Every attempt will be examined where something can be learned from it, and we will change formations, weapons, training, and orders where necessary. We owe the dead enough honesty to admit when they discovered something with their lives.”

Nagai bowed to the assembled men. Not deeply, and not with deference, but bow he did. “I am proud of what you did.”

Then the senior retainer immediately ordered everyone into the adjoining chamber for questioning.

The familiar team waited within. Abe Chikanori possessed more paper. The narrow-faced scholar sat among stacks of notes already sorted according to location, time, witness, and incident. Kuze Sōtei occupied his usual place nearby, his long beard resting against his chest while ink-darkened fingers lay folded before him.

Chief Priest Noritsuna sat beside Abbot Ryōzen. Aya knelt near the papers with brushes, ink, and several sheets prepared for illustrations.

When Shimon entered, a small smile appeared before she lowered her eyes. Shimon noticed it nonetheless. Then her gaze moved across the bandages and bruises still visible upon him, and the smile changed into something quieter.

“You returned,” she said.

Shimon remembered her standing beneath the fires at Kawamori and telling him to make surviving a better plan.

“I did,” he finished lamely

The amusement in her expression lasted another heartbeat before duty reclaimed her. Shimon found himself absurdly pleased by the exchange. Then he noticed the woman sitting opposite her.

Kuroha of Ojima smiled at him, and his pleasure disappeared immediately like spit on hot concrete.

The old diviner had apparently returned to the castle while the army was away. Her thin attendant knelt behind her exactly as Shimon remembered him, patient and watchful, while Kuroha herself seemed unchanged.Shimon stopped.

Kuroha breathed in slowly through her nose, and her smile widened. It was not a pleasant sight.

“Oh,” she exclaimed.

Shimon disliked that sound immediately.

Nagai glanced toward her. “What?”

The old woman ignored him, her eyes remaining fixed upon Shimon. “So you have entered his service.”

Cold moved across his shoulders, and no one in the room spoke as silence descended. Shimon remembered the orange letters that had appeared while he lay on the road from Kawamori.

SERVANT OF THE ENTITY.

“I have entered no one else’s service. Last time I checked, I am in the service of Lord Satomi Yoshihiro,” Shimon attempted to correct dryly.

Kuroha gave out a raspy laugh. “You should tell him.”

Noritsuna’s attention sharpened. Aya looked between them, while Heita, entering behind Shimon, heard enough of the exchange for the colour to leave his face.

Kuroha settled back upon her cushion with an expression of profound satisfaction. “You are louder now.”

Shimon frowned. “What does that mean?”

The old woman closed her eyes.

“Later.”

Shimon hated that answer with considerable intensity.

Abe tapped his brush against the edge of the inkstone. “If everyone has finished speaking mysteriously, some of us are attempting to establish what actually happened.”

Kuroha opened one eye. “You have spent your life studying mysteries.”

“And, I write them down for posterity. Your point?” the scholar cut back.

Kuze coughed into his sleeve, perhaps concealing laughter.

The debrief began. As before, witnesses were separated where practical. Abe wanted the sequence of events from the first alarm through the final withdrawal. Aya drew maps of the inner enclosure and marked tunnel entrances described independently by different soldiers. Kuze compared those locations with older plans of Kawamori-jō, while clerks recorded names, wounds, and losses.

The soldiers who had fought under the hunters proved especially valuable. They described which instructions had been easy to remember while frightened and which had become useless once a yōma reached the spear line.

“Three ranks,” one ashigaru explained. “The first held the points. The second pushed behind them. The third replaced anyone who fell.”

Abe wrote quickly. “And when the creature seized a shaft?”

“Let it have the spear if holding meant being pulled out of line.”

Abe glanced toward Nagai.

The senior retainer nodded. “Add that to the drill.”

More notes followed. They discussed the fires, tunnels, archers, the withdrawal, and what the Hōjō had done once the army reached the river. Seki’s account occupied considerable time because it changed with each telling.

Eventually Abe reached the question Shimon had been dreading. “What occurred at the final gate?”

Genpachi straightened.

The ashigaru’s account began accurately enough. “Ayanokouji-sama remained ahead of the line while the creatures approached.”

“I was in the line,” Shimon corrected.

Abe’s brush paused.

Genpachi reluctantly amended his testimony. “In the line.”

“How many creatures?” Abe asked.

“Six,” Shimon answered “One incapacitated.

Aya lowered her face toward the paper. Shimon suspected she was smiling.

Abe sighed. “Six killed, one incapacitated. Continue.”

Then came the sword, as Genpachi described the first invisible cut, causing Abe to stop writing and Kuze to lean forward as he recounted the second. By the time Genpachi reached the moment when three Grey Feeders fell to a single sweep of the katana, every person in the chamber was listening.

Noritsuna’s expression had become unreadable, while Ryōzen’s prayer beads had gone still in his hands. Kuroha, by contrast, looked openly delighted, and Aya had stopped watching the page altogether, her attention fixed instead on Shimon. Heita was questioned separately afterward, but his account only made matters worse.

“The wind changed before the first cut,” he stated plainly. “Not around the whole courtyard. Around him.”

Abe frowned. “You were already withdrawing.”

“I could still see part of the gate from higher ground.”

“What else?”

Heita hesitated as his eyes moved toward Shimon. “Something gathered around him.”

Noritsuna leaned forward. “The same presence as before?”

“I believe so.”

“Believe?” the other man quizzed.

“It was different.”

The priest narrowed his eyes. “How so?”

Matsunaga rubbed his fingers together while searching for words. “It had become harder to separate from him.”

Shimon remained perfectly still.

“Before, it seemed to stand behind him or pass through him,” Heita continued. “At Kawamori, the boundary was less clear. The shadow stretched with his movements.”

Abe’s brush scratched rapidly across the paper as Aya began another drawing, and Shimon watched dark ink gather around the outline of a swordsman while Kuroha’s smile remained firmly in place. The questioning continued through most of the afternoon, until even Abe began to look tired.

The ordinary soldiers were dismissed first. Genpachi bowed to Shimon before following the others out, and from the man’s expression, Shimon suspected the story would begin growing again the moment he returned to his company. Tarō was carried out next, after informing Abe that any further questions would require payment in sake, while Seki followed on his crutch and Heita rose more carefully behind him. Shimon began to follow.

“Remain,” Nagai said.

Shimon stopped, and Heita glanced back at him before Nagai gestured toward the door. The wounded warrior hesitated for a moment, then obeyed, leaving Shimon alone before the assembled committee as the doors closed behind him.

Nagai remained at its center, with Noritsuna seated beside Ryōzen and Kuze and Abe waiting over their papers. Aya’s brush rested motionless in her hand, while Kuroha watched Shimon with hungry eyes.

Only then did Shimon understand that the previous hours had merely established what everyone else had witnessed. Now the committee wanted to hear what only he knew.

Nagai folded his hands before him and studied Shimon in silence for several breaths before finally speaking.

“Tell us about your kami.”