Dororo: Part Two - Chapter 18

Dororo: Part Two

Nakamura Masaru

Part 3: Kagemitsu

Chapter 18

    The world was red.

    The earth, the grass, the wind—everything was red for as far as the eye could see. Fields of corpses lay still, coated in blood that glinted like metal in the light of the setting sun. There were so many corpses; it was impossible to count them all. The sun burned along the horizon line, fallen to earth just like all of the dead bodies.

    A red world.

    Daigo Kagemitsu ran across the battlefield, fleeing from enemies that followed in fast pursuit. The battle was a terrible one, but even carnage on this scale wouldn't end the ancient war between the Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan. At the start of the battle, each side's army seemed to be evenly matched, but the Muroto Clan was losing ground by sunset.

    And the Muroto Clan was losing ground by inches, not by miles. The fighting remained fierce on both sides. As he ran, Daigo Kagemitsu realized that there could be no victory for either side unless one army wiped out the other.

    Kagemitsu was a veteran of many battles. He understood that the Kaneyama Clan's strategy was one of gradual wearing down, and it was working. Right now, the ratio of men on the battlefield was six men on the Kaneyama Clan side for every four on the Muroto Clan side. The battle would end when the Kaneyama Clan had four men on their side for every two on the Muroto Clan side. With a disparity in numbers that great, what remained of the Muroto Clan's forces would break and run.

    Kagemitsu was already running. He kept it up until the Muroto Clan was outnumbered ten to one. By then, he'd lost all feeling in his legs and feet. He stumbled, fell, and didn't get up again.

    Muroto Tadataka was the leader of the Muroto Clan's forces, but he wasn't very suited to his role. Kagemitsu had always thought he was a man born out of his proper time: he wasn't warlike, nor was he a brilliant strategist. He'd also been sickly since childhood. Early in the battle, he turned tail and fled.

    Muroto Tadataka was not a good military commander, but his withdrawal from the field was terrible for morale. The Muroto Clan army was cut down where they stood, abandoned by their senior military leadership. The Kaneyama Clan army was desperate for victory; they moved over the battlefield like a landslide, pressing the attack on their ancient enemies.

    Kagemitsu mentally prepared himself to die. He drew his sword and fought all of the soldiers that came at him. The Muroto Clan army had no chance: it was impossible to win now. Kagemitsu knew that, but he couldn't bring himself to lay down and die. This was a battle, and he intended to fight it until the bitter end. He cut down Kaneyama Clan soldiers until his sword broke; then he picked up an enemy's sword and kept fighting with that. He took eight arrows in his back, legs and chest before he finally stopped moving.

    The archer that shot down Kagemitsu was a Kaneyama Clan general named Takemori. Other archers targeted Kagemitsu as well, but none of them hit their target; he bounced their arrows aside on his stolen blade.

    And then, the battle was over. The Muroto Clan army retreated, and the Kaneyama Clan army quit the field. Kaneyama Takemori ordered the Kaneyama Clan army to run through all of the Muroto Clan army's fallen men with spears to make sure that they were dead.

    Kagemitsu saw men from his own side being skewered and crawled away from the Kaneyama Clan soldiers. Sometimes, he used the bodies of the dead as a shield, hiding beneath them and playing dead himself.

    He moved across the battlefield this way, very slowly and carefully, using corpses as a disguise and pretending that he was already dead until he was completely alone.

    When Kagemitsu was alone, he decided that he would never serve the Muroto Clan again. There didn't seem to be any Muroto Clan left to serve, anyway. Muroto Tadataka was a fool, and sickly, and not competent as a leader in peacetime, never mind during a war.

    I should take your head, Kagemitsu fumed internally at Tadataka. The Kaneyama Clan doesn't deserve to have it. They haven't made me suffer like you have.

    That was true, but not very relevant to the situation. With Muroto Tadataka dead, another Muroto Clan lord would simply take his place. The Muroto Clan would recover as they always did, and the Kaneyama Clan would attack them again.

    Kagemitsu was angry, but he knew that taking his lord's head wouldn't solve any of his problems. If he killed Muroto Tadataka today, what would happen next? He'd be putting a target on his own back. And the Kaneyama Clan would certainly attack again, now that they had the Muroto Clan's army on the run.

    If the Kaneyama Clan's army won the next battle, there would be no more: not for a long time, anyway. Right now, the Muroto Clan still had an heir. The army was scattered, but it could be reassembled. Kagemitsu saw the Muroto Clan's weakness but he didn't accept that his own side had lost yet. Winning was still possible, somehow.

    Deep down in the secret parts of himself, Kagemitsu knew that there was no way for the Muroto Clan's side to turn the tide of the war without some kind of miracle.

    There's no such thing as miracles. I shouldn't expect one. What am I even thinking? Kagemitsu's thoughts were dark and hopeless.

    Muroto Tadataka was a man of strong faith. Kagemitsu had no respect for his ruling lord, but he knew that Muroto Tadataka believed in himself and in the blessings of the gods. Tadataka was always praying for success in war and thanking the gods for his blessings...and look where that had gotten him.

    The gods' blessings are worth no more than piss and shit. We'd be better off if we prayed to demons.

    Praying to demons... Kagemitsu remembered hearing about a mountain temple located at the very edge of his own domain. Rumor had it that there were powerful demons sealed inside that temple.

    What was that place called, again? That's right... the Hall of Hell.

    Kagemitsu found a skittish warhorse on the battlefield and mounted it. He used the last light of the setting sun to ride back toward his domain—and the mountain temple.

    Around midnight, the wind grew stronger and it started raining. Kagemitsu urged his horse onward through the storm until the temple came into view. Then he dismounted and walked the rest of the way.

    There were still three arrows in Kagemitsu's back, and he'd taken some wounds from enemy swordsmen as well. His blood dripped on the stone steps leading up to the temple's gate. The wooden gate was closed and locked at this time of night, and it was too sturdy for Kagemitsu to break through even if he hadn't been wounded. Kagemitsu knocked on the gate as loudly as he could and waited.

    A short while later, a priest that looked like an ascetic mountain sage came down from the temple to open the gate.

     "Who are you?" he asked.

     "I'm no one," the man answered.

     "You seem to be a retainer of the Muroto Clan, judging by your armor," the head priest said.

    "No!" Kagemitsu insisted. "I don't serve that clan. Not anymore. Never again!" He pulled an arrow from his own side with a gasp. Blood splashed on the ground near the head priest's feet. "Where is the Hall of Hell?"

     "I shall fetch a light and guide you," the head priest said. He returned with a candle and walked calmly in front of Kagemitsu toward the very heart of the temple complex.

    The roof of the Hall of Hell had eight points that rose like spikes toward the sky. Kagemitsu looked up at it, taking in the sign that hung above the door. The sign read "Hall of Hell" in crisp black letters.

    The double doors leading into the temple were barred with iron chains. Kagemitsu drew his sword from the scabbard at his hip, then sliced through the chains in a single downward strike. He pushed the head priest aside and shoved the heavy doors open.

     Kagemitsu looked around the inside of the temple, wide-eyed. "How many demon statues are there?"

    "On the first level, there are forty. On the second level, there are eight."

     "Forty-eight..."

    Kagemitsu snatched the candle from the head priest's hand. Blood from his wounds fell to the the floor of the temple as he took his first hesitant steps inside. "Were these truly carved by human hands?" Kagemitsu asked.

     "You can see the chisel marks," the head priest said. "These were made by man, not by the gods." He stood behind Kagemitsu in the temple, close to the doors. "Do you know of any other way that such statues could be formed?"

    Kagemitsu's lips twitched upward in a faint smile. "Interesting. I'm glad I came. I want to stay here tonight. Allow me to, head priest."

     "Alone? Surely not."

    Kagemitsu pointed his sword at the head priest--the same sword that had cut through the chains that secured the Hall of Hell's door. "Please."

    The head priest didn't flinch. "May the good spirits watch over you." He left the Hall of Hell and closed the door behind him.

    To either side of the temple doors, there was a demon statue shaped like a dog, and another stature shaped like a centipede. The priest's candle was on the floor. Kagemitsu picked it up and placed it on a low altar. The candlelight helped him see a little, but the light didn't penetrate the deep shadow of the ceiling.

    Kagemitsu spun in a slow circle, taking in all of the demon statues within the hall.

    I'm here, Kagemitsu thought. I don't know what to do, but...

    "You demons," Kagemitsu said quietly. "You stand there, still and silent, sealed in this place. Perhaps you have no knowledge or understanding of the suffering in this world. Or perhaps you know, and revel in it. I don't know, myself, and I don't really care." He paused. "I was foolish to come. If it is the gods that have sealed you here, then you must be weaker than they are. If that's true, you won't be able to help me." Another pause. "Maybe...we can help each other."

    Kagemitsu faced the temple doors. The statues of the dog demon and the centipede demon stood to either side of them. They didn't move, but their eyes gleamed in the candlelight as if they were alive.

    "Tell me what you want," Kagemitsu said. "Your freedom? Something else? Is it within my power to grant?"

    There was no reply. Kagemitsu removed the talismans from the two demon statues nearest the door and unwound iron chains from around the base of each of them. The statues did not move.

    "Tell me what you want," Kagemitsu repeated. "A sacrifice? Ask anything of me, and I will give it." The chains that had bound the two demons were in Kagemitsu's hands. "All I want in exchange is the power to destroy the Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan."

    Kagemitsu screamed in pain and rage. "Give me the Kaneyama Clan's lands! Give me the world, united under one banner! Can you demons do that? Or is it beyond your capabilities? Can you give me the power to conquer the entire world?!"

    The statues remained silent.

    "Answer me!" Kagemitsu shouted. "Give me an answer! Tell me what you want! And tell me what you can do!"

    Lighting touched down near the Hall of Hell, making the ground beneath Kagemitsu's feet shake; he stumbled. Something fell from the ceiling of the Hall of Hell and landed in the halo of light close to the temple's altar. Kagemitsu was startled and drew his sword. He took a step back, peering at what had fallen.

    It was a dead mouse.  The corpse was so old that it was dry and desiccated. The dead mouse rolled across the floor after it fell, but then it was still.

    "Hm? A mouse?"

    The dead mouse started shaking all over. At first, it was hard to tell if it wasn't the floor shaking from the aftereffects of the nearby lightning strike, but Kagemitsu stared at the animal's corpse and realized that it was moving all on its own.

    The dead mouse's tiny mouth opened. There were no teeth in it at all. They'd either rotted away, or they'd never fully formed and grown in.

    "A body." A voice rumbled up from the ground, deep and menacing. The dead mouse's mouth twitched and spasmed.

    A body? Kagemitsu thought.

    "The body of your child."

    My child? He remembered Yuri's face, tight with worry and concern as he'd ridden off to battle. She was heavily pregnant with their first child.

    "My wife will soon give birth," Kagemitsu said. "You want the infant? Why?"

    The deep voice laughed; the sound shook the hall. The dead mouse rolled around on the floor, mouth grotesquely open. "For that child, we will give you the world."

    Kagemitsu hesitated. He and Yuri had talked about the baby often, speculating if they would be a girl or a boy. If it's a girl, it will look like her. And if it's a boy...　he'll be like me. He woke up next to his wife each morning and rested his hands gently on her stomach, feeling the baby kick.

    He was thinking of giving that baby to demons... could he do something so terrible to Yuri? When he'd left her that morning, she had forced herself to smile and wave goodbye, not knowing if she would ever see him again.

    "What do you think?" Kagemitsu had asked her before riding off. "Would it be better for me to come home before the baby is born so I can hear their first cry, or would it be better for them to be born when I'm away, strong and healthy?"

    Yuri had smiled. "I would like you to be there and hear their first cry. You should be here at the moment our child enters the world." She gave him an encouraging smile. "So hurry back, as soon as you can."

    Kagemitsu recalled his wife's face just before he'd ridden off to war. He couldn't shake the image of her from his mind. At that moment, he loved Yuri more than anyone or anything. They'd been through so much together. She'd suffered whenever his own reputation had taken a hit, and now she was carrying their first child. He would willingly cut through any obstacle or overcome any difficulty to make her safe and happy.

    Kagemitsu wasn't ignorant of what Yuri's marriage to him represented. Any child of theirs would be related to three of the four most powerful clans in the nation. Despite that, the Muroto Clan had never been very accepting of her or of Kagemitsu, and there was always the chance that the family would be disinherited. Kagemitsu had been threatened with removal from his position several times.

    Yuri didn't deserve to have her child—their child—sold off to demons simply to save themselves.

    Kagemitsu had a terrible choice to make. He could reject the demons' offer, abandon his family and his lands, and die himself when his enemies caught up to him. Or he could accept the deal, sacrifice his firstborn child, and create a better world for Yuri, himself, and the people under his rule.

    There was no doubt in Kagemitsu's mind that the Muroto Clan would move against him once they learned he'd survived the battle. It was possible that he would be blamed for the army losing. The only way for him to save face would be for him to conquer Kaneyama Clan territory before he returned to his lord.

    Kagemitsu didn't know his child; not yet. But he couldn't stand the thought of Yuri dying because of his own failures. An infant wouldn't know or remember him, and they would be dead. That was a common enough tragedy that it was normalized; more children died in their infancy than survived.

    Knowing that didn't make Kagemitsu's decision any easier. There was no guarantee that the demons would keep their promise. He might be handing a helpless infant over to them for no reason at all. The demons asking for an infant's body made no sense. Kagemitsu's life also made no sense. He hadn't chosen to serve the Muroto Clan of his own free will. He hadn't chosen to go to war.

    Kagemitsu couldn't think of any reason for the demons to make such a bizarre and nonsensical request unless there was something they could do in exchange. In the end, it's a gamble. I either risk my own life, and Yuri's, or give up the child's.

    The statue of the dog demon close to the door leered at him. It hadn't been smiling when he'd first entered the temple.

    If Kagemitsu couldn't return victorious from war, his life and the lives of those he cared about would be over. He had to take the risk. If the demons were telling the truth, then only his child would die, and no one else. If he rejected the deal outright, his child would die anyway: of starvation, or by unjust execution by the Muroto Clan.

    If he accepted the deal and the demons were lying, then nothing about the child's situation would change. The child would die, regardless. There was no way to save the child without victory, and the only way to achieve that was through that same child—

    Truly, the world Kagemitsu lived in made no sense. In a saner world, he would never have to make such cruel choices. Making a deal with demons was irrational and insane, but it might be the only way to save his family, in the end. He saw potential ruin for himself and everyone he cared about regardless of his choice.

    Blood from his wounds dripped on the floor. If he could give his own body in exchange for the demons' assistance, he would—but that wasn't what the demons wanted. His own rage at himself and war and his clan lord welled up within himself uncontrolled. It made him hate himself, yes, but he also felt strangely powerful and courageous.

    "All right," he said. He drew his sword, reversed his grip on the hilt, and lifted the blade over his head. He brought the point of the sword down, skewering the body of the dead mouse that the demons had used to speak to him. "I accept your deal." He faced the smiling demon statue. "Show me some sign that you also accept those terms."

    The corpse of the tiny mouse shook with laughter.

    "I will give you my child's body. I swear it. Give me the world in exchange."

    Silence.

    "Give me a sign!" Kagemitsu shouted into the dark void of the Hall of Hell's ceiling.

    The floor rumbled beneath Kagemitsu's feet. "Very well," the deep voice of the demon intoned. A moment later, lightning struck the Hall of Hell. Kagemitsu rolled to avoid it, but the lightning struck him squarely on the forehead.

    The lightning didn't kill Kagemitsu. It burned a scar in the shape of an X just above the bridge of his nose. He fell on his knees with a loud thud and felt a shudder go through him as the demons were released from the seals that held them in this place. He was aware that he'd just taken his first step into a strange and terrifying world. He only hoped that this world wasn't any worse than the one he already knew.

    Kagemitsu lost track of time. He felt like he was wandering in a memory, or in a dream. The lightning burning his flesh felt like it was cutting all the way through his skull into his brain. His vision went white-blind from the intensity of the light. Suddenly, he went numb and cold all over; he tried to lift his arms and couldn't so much as lift a finger.

    As the demons threw down their chains and broke free of their seals, their shadows lengthened in the candlelight. The shadows stretched upwards toward the ceiling's perpetual darkness.

    "Agh!" Kagemitsu screamed and clutched at his forehead. The pain of his wounds brought him back to the present moment. He stood up, but he couldn't tell where he was: the lightning had rendered him temporarily blind. He heard laughter echoing all around him. The demon who had spoken to him hadn't stopped laughing, and now, it was joined by a throng of other gleeful, evil-sounding voices.  

    There's no going back. Not now.

    Daigo Kagemitsu spun on his heel and put both palms to the temple doors. He pushed them open. The Hall of Hell was on fire now: the lightning had caused that, too.

    The head priest was standing just beyond the temple's double doors. He gave Kagemitsu a sorrowful look. "Lord Daigo—did you make a deal with the demons?" he asked quietly.

    Kagemitsu frowned at him. He hadn't seen himself in a mirror yet, so he didn't know that he had a prominent and visible scar on his forehead.

    "Forgive me," Kagemitsu said. His sword was still in his hand. "I can't let you tell anyone." As lightning flashed in the sky above, Kagemitsu cut the head priest's head clean off. As his head moved through the air into the dark, Kagemitsu considered the idea that the priest was a blood sacrifice that the Hall of Hell demons needed to seal their pact.

    "I'm sorry," Kagemitsu said, looking down at the priest's lifeless body. It was raining. Water pooled around the corpse and around Kagemitsu's boots. He'd known before coming out here that he would not be able to go back on his word to the demons. Not now, not ever.

    Kagemitsu stood over the body of the head priest and felt the stirrings of remorse moving within him. This wasn't right. He'd made the wrong choice. He clamped down on his own thoughts and pushed them down before he could falter.

    "I have to go," he said. "Yuri—"

    With the temple burning behind him and the wind fluttering his hair, Daigo Kagemitsu walked down the mountain path to the gate. He had to go home. There was a whole world out there for him to conquer.

    The pouring rain made it difficult to see. Kagemitsu mounted his horse and let the poor creature have its head as it sought its way back to familiar surroundings. The mountain forest was thick with trees and very dark. Rain fell from the tree canopy onto the back of his neck, ice cold.

    The rain continued all night. Kagemitsu rode through the mountain forest until sunrise. Dappled sunlight filtered through the tree canopy overhead. Droplets of water gathered on the leaves and shone like tiny gems in the bright light. A mist rose out of the ground and formed a rainbow.

    The forest around Kagemitsu was quiet and still in the aftermath of the storm. The rain had washed everything clean. He'd rarely seen such beauty before in his life. Kagemitsu decided to take the rainbow as a positive omen. Regardless of what had happened last night, tonight was a new day, and going home was definitely the right thing to do.

    But then—something in the air changed. Kagemitsu no longer saw the beautiful forest around him, and he forgot all about his wife at home. He was consumed by urgent, compulsory thoughts about how to kill his lord and take his army. When he tried to think about anything else, his mind went completely blank.

    I have to do it. I have to kill him. I know I do. Why can't I think about something else? My wife? My child?

    Kagemitsu arrived home at his estate in the mountains around noon. There was a small hut used by traveling monks to take shelter near the road. Kagemitsu had built it shortly after his marriage to Yuri. Sometimes, when they both had free time, they would go out and spend some time in the hermitage and go walking in the woods. He'd lived on this quiet mountain estate for his entire life, and he always enjoyed how peaceful it was.

    That morning, Yuri gave birth. He brought in a midwife from the nearby village to assist her. He paced outside the birthing chamber, praying fervently that Yuri would be all right. She heard him there and asked him to come see her.

    Kagemitsu entered the room hesitantly. Yuri noticed his battle wounds: her eyes went wide in alarm. "You must have your wounds treated!" she insisted. "Let me help—" She tried to get up, but cried out in pain. Her labor contractions had just started.

    Kagemitsu slapped Yuri away from him. "Don't touch me."  

    Yuri's forehead crinkled in a frown. "Kagemitsu? What on earth is wrong?"  

    "You must lie down," Kagemitsu said. "You need your strength."  

    Yuri collapsed to the floor groaning, and Kagemitsu remembered his previous terror. Yuri curled her fingers protectively over her distended stomach, still in pain, but mastering it. She recovered enough to stand and be led to her bed. Kagemitsu thought he could see the demons tearing her open from the outside in, ripping her apart--but it was only in his mind.  

    There is no going back now, Kagemitsu thought. This is a gamble--a wager--and I will win it, no matter the cost.  

    He didn't want to witness any more of his wife's agony. He turned on his heel and left to find help. "Where is the midwife?" he yelled at the top of his voice. "She is needed! Find her!"  

    The midwife was fetched and sent to his wife's chambers, but he didn't follow her. Something within him was terrified of returning to that room.  

    We will win, Kagemitsu thought to steady himself. The risk is worth the reward.  

    It took hours for the child to be born. Yuri's eyelids drooped from exhaustion. The midwife shrieked in dismay, her cry so loud that Kagemitsu could hear it two rooms away where he was sitting and waiting. She wouldn't stop screaming; the noise was driving Kagemitsu to distraction. Without thinking about it, he drew his dagger, stalked toward his wife's rooms and thought about slashing the midwife across the throat.  The midwife wouldn't be able to tell anyone what she'd seen that way. Kagemitsu reassured himself that everything he was doing was for the future as he approached his wife and newborn child.  

    Yuri looked up at him apprehensively with the strange-looking baby clasped to her chest. It wasn't moving, and for a moment Kagemitsu thought it was dead, but then it moved.

    The infant had no limbs or eyes or other appendages. There was no blood save from the birth itself, but that gave the infant the look of a creature that had been torn apart by wild animals and left to die. Kagemitsu's heart was hardened to such sights after a lifetime of war. My son died in the war, he told himself, and it felt right to him.  

    Kagemitsu was moved to pity for the pathetic little thing despite himself. All the infant's limbs and sense organs were gone, ripped away—but it still clung doggedly to life. The demons were cruel to leave the infant this way instead of killing it outright. Still, the sight of the writhing, limbless worm did nothing to shake his resolve. He had gambled everything for the sake of the future.  

    A twinge of sadness made him draw the dagger at his hip and raise it up, preparing to stab the infant through and end its suffering.  

    Yuri clutched the infant desperately to her, out of his reach. "What are you doing?" she asked hoarsely.

    "Don't you see what I see?" Kagemitsu asked. "It is cruel, allowing this thing to live." It occurred to him then that the demons had left the infant alive as a trial for Kagemitsu. Killing it with his own hands might be some kind of test.  

    Kagemitsu raised his knife again, then lunged forward. Yuri caught his arm. "Let me go!"

    Yuri said nothing. Tears streamed silently down her cheeks. She had never denied her husband anything before. She'd never opposed him in any meaningful way... until now.

    "Are you mad?" Yuri  asked. "He's still alive!" 

    "It won't be for much longer," Kagemitsu  snapped. "I don't want to look at it. It's time to get rid of it." 

    Yuri didn't let go.  She wept without making a sound, using all her strength to prevent him from murdering their child.

    "Fine." Kagemitsu gritted his teeth. "Throw it away, then. Just don't make me look at it. And if I find out you spared him for any reason, don't come back here. I'll kill you myself." 

    Yuri flinched. She was still crying.

    "You must not make her do this," a midwife said. Until that moment, Kagemitsu had barely been aware of the other woman's presence. "She is exhausted from giving birth. Allow me to go in her stead." 

    Kagemitsu pointed his dagger at the midwife.

    Yuri struggled to her feet. "I...I'll go." 

    "You must not, my lady!" The midwife bowed down low.

    "I'm fine." 

    "Please!" The midwife turned to Kagemitsu. "Allow her to rest today. Tomorrow morning, the two of us will abandon the child. I swear it." 

    The next day, Yuri and the midwife took the malformed child to the river close to the estate. That afternoon, the sun was consumed in the darkness of a total solar eclipse. Kagemitsu stood atop and rocky outcropping and looked at the sun as it disappeared from the sky, leaving nothing but the faintest rim of light behind. He could see everything from here: his estate, the mountain peak, the forest clinging to the steep slope overhead overbearing in the sudden dark. Watching his domain swallowed up by blackness made him feel the total power of the demons over this world. This was a declaration of hostilities to the Muroto Clan. The demons would tear it apart like they'd ripped apart the infant's body, and Kagemitsu would be there to put the pieces back together.

    Kagemitsu prayed for a successful campaign against the Muroto Clan and saw the corona around the black sun flare red. Kagemitsu felt renewed strength flow through his body and thought, With this power on my side, I can have the world. A laugh welled up within him, and he released it. Kagemitsu's voice echoed in the mountain forest.

    The eclipse ended suddenly: the darkness rolled away from the sun like a stone being moved away from the front of a cave entrance, restoring light to Kagemitsu's surroundings.   

    Yuri cried out from the reeds close to the river at the same moment that sunlight struck the Muroto Clan's fortress. I will take that fortress and grind the clan under my bootheels, Kagemitsu vowed to himself. He didn't accompany Yuri home from the riverbank. He made preparations for himself and his army to depart immediately.

    Kagemitsu arrived at the Muroto Clan fortress to find several other lords and retainers helping to load food supplies into wagons. By good luck, the Muroto Clan lord himself was overseeing the process. Kagemitsu approached him, bold as brass, and cut him down.

    "You bastard!" another clan lord shouted.  

    "Traitor! How long have you been planning this?!" 

    "A dog that bites his master must be put down!" 

    Kagemitsu was surrounded on all sides by men with drawn swords, but he remained completely calm. "You fools! I did only what was right. The heir of the Kaneyama Clan musters his army at our border, and our lord did nothing to stop him. Oceans of people have died because of his incompetence. If we do not act now to save our land and our families, we will lose it all!" 

    The ruckus around Kagemitsu quieted. "You said the heir is marching on us?" a man asked.

    "Not the lord?"

    "What happened to the lord of the Kaneyama Clan?!" 

    "I killed him," Kagemitsu said in a voice pitched to carry. This was a gamble, too, like so much else in his life recently. There was no way to verify that Lord Kaneyama was dead or not—certainly not from here. But Kagemitsu didn't let that bother him. He'd heard reports from the battlefield, and now he had an army of demons at his back. No Kaneyama lord—father or son—would live for much longer.

    Kagemitsu had bargained with the demons for the power to conquer the world. Nothing could stand in his way now--not armies, not lords, not even logic or reason. The power was his to wield and control. If he failed now, it would be his own fault, not the demons’.

    And the men around Kagemitsu believed him. He could see that: they believed that the lord of the Kaneyama Clan was dead. “I killed him!” Kagemitsu repeated. “And I go to take his fortress! Who will come with me?”

    “Why should we follow you? You’re nothing but a kicked dog,” the new heir of the Muroto Clan grumbled. He was shaken by the sudden death of his kinsman. By all rights, he should be the leader here, not Kagemitsu.

    Kagemitsu turned on his heel and cut the man’s head off with a strong strike. The head flew off, rolling through the air and landing in the crowd. There was a brief uproar, but no one attacked Kagemitsu. The few that might have were staunch supporters of the Muroto Clan, and the Muroto Clan’s male heirs were now dead. After much grumbling, the other lords in the courtyard pledged to support Kagemitsu in his campaign against the Kaneyama Clan.

    “I do not wield this blade solely for my own sake,” Kagemitsu said. “I wield it for us all, and all we have lost. My armies leave at sunset; you have until then to make your preparations. We will hunt down the retreating Kaneyama Clan army and slaughter them all, as they deserve! We will grind their bones into the earth and build a new nation on the Kaneyama Clan’s shattered foundation! We are no longer retainers of the Muroto Clan. We are something stronger and greater. Those who follow me will have rewards worthy of a lord. Our steel will be as the claws and teeth of the wild mountain dogs of old. I vow to remove every Kaneyama Clan lord and their retainers from these mountains in the next five days. Let’s get going!”

    There was a silence. Then, “Let’s go!” one lord shouted.

    “And me!” yelled another.

    A man named Kihon stepped in front of the others. “They’re already running scared,” he said. “And they should be! We’ll give ‘em hell. We already have!”

    By sunset that night, Kagemitsu had total control of the Muroto Clan’s fortress. The next morning, he and his army marched on the Kaneyama Clan. The army flew the banners of the Muroto Clan--a winding snake motif--and swept over the Kaneyama Clan in a wave. The victory was so easy that the army sprinted ahead and conquered another nearby province before anyone suggested slowing down.

    The Kabei Clan and Isobe Clan formed an alliance, but it didn’t last long. Those territories, too, fell under the Daigo Clan’s control.

 

***

 

    Yuri listened to what Kagemitsu said, barely restraining her tears. “You made a pact--with demons? Why?” She turned to Tahōmaru, who was stunned speechless. “If what you say is true, then the man who came to us is the shadow of our family’s great sin. He has reason to hate us, and we have no reason to deny him his revenge.”

    “Don’t we?” Kagemitsu countered. “We have no real verification that this man is our lost child. He has arms, legs, and eyes--how would he have gotten them back? Did the demons do that? I doubt it. You are confused, Yuri. Don’t lose sight of our family’s larger goal.”

    “It was our son that I saw,” Yuri said. “How else to explain the Sakurazawa mon on his clothes?”

    “A Sakurazawa retainer could have thrown the clothes out when they got ripped or stained,” Kagemitsu said. “He could have picked them up anywhere after that.”

    “You’re wrong. When we spoke, I saw it--everything that had happened to him, including what happened after we abandoned him.”

    “It was your imagination!”

    “It was not!” Yuri insisted. “If you doubt my eyes, trust your own. Summon that man back here. Tahōmaru, please listen--”

    Tahōmaru was looking at her with his eyes slightly squinted in exhaustion or pity. He didn’t believe her. That made Yuri’s heart sink. Her words faltered.

    Glaring, Tahōmaru said, “You called him Tahōmaru. Did you name me after the son you thought dead? How morbid.”

    “It doesn’t matter,” Kagemitsu said impatiently. “If not for the demons, you might never have been born, Tahōmaru. You certainly wouldn’t be the person you are now. It’s our family’s obligation to look to the future. There’s nothing to be done about the past. Gather your strength, Tahōmaru. Like me, you have a destiny to conquer this world and rule it. You are my heir: you and no other.”

    Tahōmaru appeared uncomfortable. He couldn’t hold his father’s gaze and looked down. When he looked up again, Kagemitsu said quietly, “I am making you my second-in-command for the upcoming war against the Isobe and Kabei Clans."

    Tahōmaru blinked in surprise. He had supported his father on battlefields before, but never as a general.

    Yuri’s knees went weak. Tahōmaru was descended from the Isobe and Kabei Clans, just like her. War was bad enough without having to kill family. There was a terrible void of emptiness within her that grew year by year as the Daigo Clan’s armies wiped out her kin. There were times when she felt like the last one left--she and her children.

    “Go to war as a soldier and a general, Tahōmaru,” Kagemitsu said. “If your conscience eats at you because of my deal with the demons, feel free to take your death there. But if you lead as my right hand, you will take the world and share it with me.”

    At that moment, Yuri became convinced that her husband’s deal with the demons was real--or at least that he believed in it. She felt like Kagemitsu was sacrificing another child--their youngest child, the last one left--to war.

    The sun set behind the mountains. Drizzling rain fell after sunset as the cicadas made their mournful evening cries. The rain and chorus of insects reminded Yuri of a funeral.

 

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