Minister Hideo screamed as a beefy black fellow with knives for teeth scampered up the folds of his sokutai robe and began tearing strips off his legs. Bushimen around him began crying out, sleek, mongrel shapes sinking little fangs into the unprotected flesh behind their knees, gnawing at their heels. Screams echoed down the black corridors, the sound of night-terrors and sweat, shrieking, childhood fear.
Michi lashed out with her tsurugi at the flailing soldiers, blade sinking up to the hilt, painting the walls. She swept away their feet, sending them crashing onto the ground, the skittering horde of black shapes and bright eyes washing over them like a seething, squealing tide. Sharp teeth sank into soft skin, exposed throats, eyelids, the floor awash with scarlet. It was a hard death to endure. Almost as hard as it was to watch.
Hideo sank to his knees, flailing as the black shapes poured over him, bright mouthfuls of pain tearing through the lotus haze. The bone pipe fell from his twitching fingers. Michi stood over him as he rolled about on the ground, screaming, thrashing, begging for the mercy of the bloody sword in her hand.
She looked down on him, eyes cold, and sheathed the weapon at her back. “Remember Daiyakawa,” she whispered.
Masaru dragged Kasumi away from the carnage, back into his cell. Akihito
crawled in beside him, pale with grief and pain, tying a bloody rag around the gouge in his leg. Masaru tore Kasumi’s uwagi, tried to staunch the blood flow from the wounds in her chest and gut. Kasumi coughed, blood on her lips, teeth gritted.
“Leave it,” she gasped, pushing Masaru’s hands away.
“No.” He pressed harder at the bubbling wounds. “We’re getting out of here.” “Masaru . . .” Kasumi winced, swallowed thickly. “If they knew our plan . . .
t-they know Yukiko’s too.” She squeezed her eyes shut, doubled over for a moment. “The arena. The arashitora. All of it. You have to help her.” Masaru kissed her hand, smudging his lips with blood, unwilling to let go. Kasumi pressed his palm against her cheek. A thin red line spilled from the corner of her mouth.
“We have to go.” Michi hovered by the cell door, spattered in gore. “The ship is waiting.”
Masaru’s eyes didn’t leave Kasumi’s as he spoke, “Yukiko is in danger.”
“You can barely stand.” Michi nodded to Akihito, “He can’t stand at all.”
“Get him to the ship,” Masaru glanced back at her. “Get Akihito out of here.”
“Masaru, you bastard, you’re not leaving me again.” Akihito tried to get to his feet, clutching his leg. “No chance in all the hells.”
“You can’t fight if you can’t walk, brother.”
“I’ll bloody crawl if I have to.”
Kasumi blinked at Akihito, the light dimming in her eyes.
“Go. There is no shame.”
Akihito stared hard, jaw set, clenching and unclenching his fists. He glanced down at the wound in his thigh, the blood pooling on the floor at his feet, then back into her eyes.
“It’s a scratch. I can fight.”
“Fight another day, you big lump.”
The big man’s face crumpled and tears spilled down his cheeks.
“Kas’ . . .”
She smiled up at him, pale lips smeared with red.
“Remember me, brother.”
Akihito sat for a long, silent moment, holding his breath lest it emerge as a sob. Then he leaned in to kiss her brow, teeth gritted against the pain. Michi padded up beside him, offered one bloodstained hand. Struggling to his feet, the big man threw one arm over the girl’s shoulder. Looking down at Masaru and Kasumi, he closed his eyes as if burning the picture into his mind. Then he hung his head and turned away.
Sparing one long, sad glance for the lovers on the bloody floor, Michi turned and began hobbling out of the cell, struggling under Akihito’s weight. They became shadows, black shapes limping in the dark. Their footprints glistened on the stone behind them.
Masaru turned back to Kasumi, squeezing her hands tight.
“My beautiful lady,” he whispered.
He remembered the touch of her lips, the feel of her skin, those sweet, desperate nights together beneath the stars. He’d been blind. He should have loved her as she deserved. He should have seen that punishing himself meant he was punishing her too.
I should have married you, love.
“I . . .” He swallowed. “I should have . . .”
“You should have.” A faint smile. “But I knew it, Masaru. I knew.”
She exhaled, drifting closer to that bottomless, colorless edge with every breath.
“I will miss you.” She closed her eyes as she began to fall. “I love you.”
He squeezed her hand, willing her away from the brink. He couldn’t see her face for the tears in his eyes, the sting of his grief. He could only feel her, smell her, listening as her breath became shallow and frail in the dark, and then became nothing at all.
“Wait,” he whispered.
But she didn’t.
The beast roared, straining at the end of its metal leash, the chain unwilling to break. Yoritomo glanced over his shoulder as he fled out into the street, saw the Guildsman light a blue fire at his wrist and begin cutting the tether around the arashitora’s throat. In seconds, it would be free, pursuing him on those accursed clockwork wings.