chest. There was a sharp cracking noise, a red light sprang to life at one end of the tube, and he hurled it at the oncoming samurai. A soundless explosion, a white sphere of light, tinged at the edges with translucent, bloody red. The sphere expanded in the blink of an eye, catching four of the charging samurai in its arc. There was a sudden stench of evaporating chi, the sound of fuel lines expanding and bursting, a rush of blue-black vapor. The samurai collapsed under the dead weight of their ō-yoroi, chainkatana falling silent as their motors stalled.
Buruu and Yukiko charged at the gap in their circle, pouncing onto a samurai and disassembling him completely, the pieces flying apart like dry leaves in a storm. They leaped into the air, feeling the heat beneath their wings, soaring across the row of growling swords. Coming down behind the knot of warriors, swiping at their backs, metal shredding like paper. Blood spraying in the air, on their faces, scent filling their lungs. Eyes in front and behind, moving like water, severing arms and opening throats and leaping into the air again, wings a blur, roaring in defiance. Choking sounds. Wet bubbling writ upon broken stone.
A flash from Kin’s second grenade burst in the middle of the samurai thicket, armor dying in the aftermath. Boiling clouds of blue-black rushed from the ruined ō-yoroi, the men inside howling in frustration as lifeless iron bore them to the ground.
Yukiko and Buruu flew up above the melee, leash snapping taut, groaning but holding fast. They swooped down again, the chain sweeping through the samurai like a scythe. They were a slingstone on a tether of metal, cutting through the assembled men, a hot blade through snow, all hissing steam and spraying blood. The sun glinted off the metal on their wings, the tantō in their fist, the murder painted on their skin.
They turned their eyes to the traitor, sea-green stare alight with rage, neodaishō snarling in his hands. He dashed forward and kicked Kin in the chest, katana glancing off the Guildsman’s armor, a rain of sparks against the brass. Kin deflected the blows with his forearms, staggering beneath the flurry. The loading crane on the Guildsman’s back uncurled and snapped at Hiro’s head, a hissing viper with iron jaws, catching the samurai’s chainwakizashi and tearing it from his grip.
The Guildsmen of Shima were many things, but they were far from fools. They had gifted the Iron Samurai with weapons to cut through flesh and bone in the blink of an eye. To lay entire armies of meat to waste. But against a Guildsman’s skin? Hiro’s weapons were butter knives against a brick wall.
Still, the Iron Samurai was an adept, honed by years of training that Kin had spent crouched over a workbench. And so the boy’s feet were swept out from under him and he crashed to the floor amidst a burst of chi fumes. Blue sparks spilled from his armor, Hiro stomping up and down on his chest. The samurai raised one black enameled foot to crush Kin’s unprotected head.
They roared, a boom of thunder across the arena floor, setting the plates of Hiro’s armor squealing. He turned to face them, chainkatana in a double-handed grip, breath heaving in his lungs. He tore the helmet from his head so they could see his face, damp with sweat, fearless, fierce eyes, teeth clenched.
Yukiko’s voice was a low, dangerous growl.
“You can’t win this, Hiro.”
He drummed his fingers across the hilt, spat on the ground.
“To wield the long and the short sword,” he hissed, “and to die.” They bounded into the air, wings spread, blue lightning playing across the
edges of their feathers. The hands that had held them in the night, that had sent goosebumps shivering down their spine, now swinging the growling sword toward them, an unrecognizable mask of hatred for a face.
Their flesh separated, what had been Yukiko springing from the back of what had been Buruu. They took Hiro’s right arm off just below the shoulder, beak shearing through black iron in a shower of sparks and bright red. Their knife sank up to the hilt in the gap in his breastplate, just below his armpit. Sticky warmth flooded over their hands as they held him tight, lowering him to the ground in ruins.
“Goodbye, Hiro,” they whispered.
Their breath rasped in their lungs, hearts thundering in their chests. They
wiped their hand across their faces, smearing the blood across pale skin, and turned to face Yoritomo.
The Shōgun dropped his katana and ran.
A chittering horde, eyes of red, jagged teeth glittering in the dark. They scampered from the shadows, all thick tails and mottled fur and sharp claws, a fly-blown legion grown fat and fierce on corpse-meat. The vermin of Kigen’s gutters, now rising to consume its best and brightest.