Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One)

by Harmon Cooper

  Arik explained how he had been taken as a slave, escaped, met Meosa and continued onward, all the way down to the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts in search of a guest lecturer that had spent some time at his school, a man named Combat Master Nankai.

  He then detailed his meeting with Master Altai Masamune, who had given him a month to travel around and attend a few warrior pilgrimages before he returned to the southern city of Mogra for a tournament, the winner of which would get a personal audience with Nobunaga and the chance to join his ranks.

  “I will win the tournament, and then I will kill him,” Arik said passionately. “If I’m not able to, I will train with Master Altai…” Once again, he had this strange feeling that he was saying too much, yet he wasn’t able to stop himself from doing so. Even though he didn’t trust Hojo at all, he felt compelled to reveal everything to him.

  “And you plan to grow strong enough to do that in four weeks?”

  “Do you know about the Mask of the Fallen?” Arik asked.

  Once again, Hojo looked up at the sky. “The Mask of the Fallen… what would your advice be, kami?”

  “The name is Meosa, and I have already given him my advice. You will soon find that our disciple here is quite stubborn.”

  “I see. In that case, we should get moving.”

  “But you haven’t told me anything about yourself,” Arik said.

  “You’re catching on,” Hojo said as he turned to the forest.

  “You asked what I knew about the School of Illusion, and all I know is that it was supposedly disbanded, yet I saw the shinobi men in their masks, a woman too, maybe more. I saw what they were capable of. If you are one of them…” Arik placed his hand on the grip of the sword. “I’m not going with you.”

  “There is no need to draw your weapon,” Hojo said, his back still to Arik. “And as I told you, I am not a shinobi, not any longer. The title ‘shinobi’ is one that is obtained through studying at the School of Illusion. There is another title that is harder to achieve, yet this one in particular seems to be the title that the public has latched onto. If you must know…” Hojo finally turned back to Arik. “I was Hidden Warrior.”

  “Hidden Warrior?”

  “I knew it,” Meosa said. “Not only are you one of them, you are one of their instructors! The highest level.”

  “The highest level?” Arik asked, his eyes going wide.

  Hojo grew silent, several beats passing before he spoke again. “The kami is right. Years ago, before it disbanded, I was an instructor at the School of Illusion. Along with my counterparts, we agreed to destroy any of the written information, fully finishing the transition of the School of Illusion to an oral tradition.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we saw where it was going. We thought that if we disbanded the school and strictly kept it to an oral tradition, that we would limit what you experienced back at your Academy. Our fear was that the lesser graduates of School of Illusion would take on new roles as mercenaries, purchasable by any of the three realms of Taomoni. But we failed. And one of our brothers strayed from the path, not only killing the master illusionists aside from me, but also training up a new class. The locals have come to calling this new class of illusionists ‘shinobi,’ but they aren’t true shinobi.”

  “So just like I am a disciple, anyone at the School of Illusion is an illusionist. What are the actual titles, then?”

  “It would be a long discussion for me to break down the various titles that one earns through the School of Illusion, likely similar to the length it would take for you to delve into the various branches studied at your Academy. We can talk about all that later, but if you must know, there are four main titles achieved through the School of Illusion, and ‘shinobi’ just happens to be one of them.”

  “So… you’re the only one left? The only Hidden Warrior?” Arik asked, seeing immediately how this related to his current situation.

  “Not quite, but in a way, yes,” Hojo told him, an elusive answer if there ever was one. “As I said earlier, we officially disbanded the School of Illusion with the goal of taking on a much more limited student body. I have trained one person, and that was who I happened to be looking for when I met you.”

  Arik recalled the silent, kitsune-masked woman he had met in the desert, the one whom he had saved from the demonic kami known as a yasha. “This person wouldn’t happen to wear something like a kitsune mask, would they? Because we encountered a female shinobi back in the desert.”

  “Definitely a shinobi,” Meosa added. “Ring any bells, illusionist?”

  Arik wished that Hojo’s face wasn’t so obscured, the disciple not able to get a read on what the man truly thought of this question as he shook his head. “We should go.”

  ****

  More questions came to Arik as he followed Hojo deeper into the Jadean woods. They had been walking for several hours now, the former instructor at the School of Illusion seeming to know the way by heart. Occasionally, Hojo would stop and observe something by crouching before a root or grazing his fingers against a tree. He also conversed with Meosa a few times, Arik still not quite understanding the relationship that the two were developing, both not revealing the entirety of their pasts to one another.

  It was only when the sun was starting to rise, everything now with a dark-blue sheen to it, that Hojo came to a stop. “We will rest for two hours and then move on, back to the road,” he said. “You must have a story prepared.”

  “I already told you my story.”

  “He means a story that you will tell others if you are discovered alongside him on the road,” Meosa said. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Everything that involves the School of Illusion is a lie, an illusion, which is why their students and practitioners are called illusionists.”

  Arik waited for Hojo to challenge this assertion, but he never did.

  “We don’t look like farmers, and probably don’t look like warriors either,” Arik said. “You have enough stolen items to possibly be a merchant…”

  “Do not confuse thievery with sound strategy.” Hojo unbuckled the pack that he had filled with whatever he could pilfer back at the carriages. “I wish I could say that we lived in a world where things like what happened earlier were impossible, or at the very least, that there would be some type of investigation. And maybe if we were closer to Avarga, or any of the larger cities in the Jade Realm, that would be a possibility. But the site will be picked through by the time any authorities come, and if there is anything left, they will take it for themselves.”

  “It still doesn’t make it right.”

  “Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where it also doesn’t make it wrong.” Hojo found some of the items he had taken, including long strips of meat that had been packaged in the husks of a desert plant. “Eat.”

  “I have my own food,” Arik said in an obstinate way as he got out some of the rations that the nursemaid Indra had given him.

  For a moment the two were quiet, but eventually Hojo spoke again: “What will you do when you reach Avarga?”

  “I’ll look for the Mask of the Fallen. Maybe I’ll find a warrior pilgrimage to compete in as well.”

  Hojo’s eyes darted to Arik’s weapon. “You are trained in the art of the sword?”

  “You saw me back there.”

  Meosa laughed. “Not only is he stubborn, but he thinks he’s actually worth a damn.” The aqueous kami came to life, his form materializing next to Arik, attached to the waterskin as always. “Our dear disciple here has a mere month to improve his skills to the point that he can take on someone who may have spent their entire life preparing for a fight like this. Yet he has decided to use this time to go after a legendary object that may or may not exist.”

  “It exists,” Arik told him.

  “Maybe it does,” said Hojo. “Regarding your training, you’d perhaps have better luck in the Crimson Realm with finding a teacher, but as you mentioned, there are plenty of warrior pilgri
mages in the Jade Realm as well, and if you work at it, you’d be able to enter several and even win some money and notoriety in the process. But you would need to go to Iga to do that; you won’t find these pilgrimages in Avarga. You do have money, do you not?”

  Arik had placed the money he had left in his bag, and he assumed it was still there. But something about the way Hojo said this made him want to check. Sure enough, the funds given to him by Master Altai and Master Kojiro were gone.

  “You… you stole it.”

  “You’re right, and you can have the money back,” Hojo said as he withdrew the bills from a slit in his slightly tattered robes. “I assumed once you left the carriage that you would die, so I borrowed them as you stepped out.”

  “Borrowed!? These illusionists…” Meosa said as the disciple took his money back.

  Arik shook his head. “You call yourself a teacher, but you’re no better than a thief.”

  “Not many of us are any better than a thief.” Hojo stripped a piece of meat off a cold rib and chewed it slowly. “Everything is stolen in this world. Your time, your dignity, your intelligence, your life, or perhaps your wealth. Food, oxygen, water, shelter, and deception—these are the things that aid in a human’s longevity.”

  “Be careful with the philosophy of an illusionist,” Meosa warned the disciple. “It grows increasingly shallow once you reach the core.”

  Once again, Hojo didn’t respond to his remark. Instead, he returned to his earlier line of questioning. “Now that you have money, you will attempt to find the Mask of the Fallen, will you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “My plan is to find the publisher, Yoshimura Books, and hopefully something will come from that.”

  “The mask that you don’t even know exists,” Meosa said.

  “You and I both know it exists,” Arik said, growing agitated with the kami. “This may be the only chance I have to stop the impending war. No one else will save my people, nor will they avenge…” He never finished this sentence.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Hojo. “From what I’ve heard, there are factions in the Onyx Realm that are trying to do something, but I would know little of what they are planning. I heard something about Merit Ashmore’s son, Koshi, pulling together a band of fighters known as the Righteous, but I’ve yet to verify this personally.”

  “Shinobi are such good listeners,” Meosa said in a jaded way.

  “There are no true shinobi left, kami. These are imposters, barely worthy of the title illusionist,” Hojo said. “If you must know, there are four titles an illusionist can achieve through their course of study—Ashigaru, Kanja, Shinobi, and the final title, Hidden Warrior, which was the level I achieved.”

  “Which roughly translates to footsoldier, spy, the men that we just killed back there, and you,” Meosa shot back. “I am also your elder, even if you like to pretend as if you’re some sort of wandering mendicant brimming with supposedly sagacious nihilistic wisdom. I know what you are. And you don’t retire from being an illusionist. An illusionist retires you from being you.”

  “That is a very philosophical statement, kami, one that I will have to think on. But I can think on it another day. I have a proposition for you,” Hojo said.

  “For who?” Meosa asked.

  Hojo took another bite of meat, finishing what was left on his rib. He tossed the bone over his shoulder. “You clearly have a lot to learn, Disciple Arik, when it comes to combat.”

  “I was trained by Combat Master Nankai…”

  “I’m sure you were, and it was a light training, was it not? You said that he was a visiting lecturer, so he couldn’t have been there more than a year or two.”

  “Two years.”

  “And he taught you to use one weapon, unless you are able to use two.”

  “Just one.”

  Hojo wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Yet this instructor of yours hailed from the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts, as you told me earlier. So there appears to be something he already left out of his technical curriculum. That said, for two years of training, you are much more versed in the art of the blade than I thought you would be. Perhaps this is why this Master Altai decided to risk not only his life, but yours in sending you on this little mission.”

  “Why would Master Altai be risking his life?”

  “This is your first lesson, disciple. You need to be careful who you reveal information to. I’m not going to do anything with the information that you have already given me, but even in saying that, you don’t know if this is actually the case. I am not of the mindset to trust no one, but the state of the world as it is, I would advise being very careful of whom you trust, including someone like me.”

  Arik slowly lowered his head, actually hoping for once that Meosa would reply with something snarky. But he never did.

  “I have a proposal for you, and perhaps I’m going out on a limb here in a way that will also put my life at risk in the future. But it seems like the right thing to do, as much as I don’t want to admit that.” Hojo let his statement sink in as he ate another piece of meat. Once he cleaned the bone, he tossed it over his shoulder, this time in a different direction than he had tossed the last one. “You said you have four weeks to improve your skill.”

  “I do.”

  “In that case, I will do what I can to train you in about three and a half, and I will even help you obtain the Mask of the Fallen.”

  “Y-you will?” he asked, his apprehension evident in his voice as he recalled what people like the man in front of him were capable of. But it is a way to fight fire with fire, Arik thought as he took Hojo in, the mysterious illusionist and his rough appearance.

  “You are in luck. The Mask of the Fallen is not at Mount Osore, as many believe. It is in a rich man’s private collection in Avarga, in a compound that is nearly impenetrable. Over the next several weeks, I’m going to teach you how to steal it at the same time as I show you some of the better techniques you would have picked up as an illusionist in my school.”

  “There has to be a catch,” Meosa grumbled. “There’s always a catch.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, at least not at this stage,” Hojo said. “To be honest with you, disciple, I was quite impressed with what you were able to do back there, as limited as it was, and how the two of you were able to fight together. You have a symbiotic relationship to some degree, which is rare. I like your determination, and your concern for others is something that I find admirable. I don’t think that you will be able to kill Nobunaga a month from now, but I would like to aid in any way I can merely for the fact that a war between the Crimson and Onyx Realm would inevitably involve my country.”

  “So that’s what’s in it for you,” said Meosa. “To save your own skin.”

  “And this goes without saying, Disciple Arik, but I will verbalize it anyway: I’m not a fan of the cowards that attacked your Academy, these false shinobi. In fact, I would say that I am an enemy of these men. They have ruined the teachings of the School of Illusion, muddied the subject I’ve dedicated my life to studying.” Hojo shifted his focus to Meosa. “You asked what I’m getting out of this, kami, and it is that—the satisfaction that I may play a part in changing history for the better, as well as atoning for what has happened in the north, a tragedy that is yet to truly play out, in my opinion. I’m also interested in Revivaura and what you can do, so perhaps that is another reason, one based in curiosity.”

  “Will you show me how to use Chimaura?” Arik asked.

  “Chimaura doesn’t necessarily exist, regardless of what you’ve heard,” Hojo said flatly. “But I will show you the ideas that the School of Illusion embodies, and how you can use them to your advantage not only in combat, but in the real world. What do you say?” he asked, his gray eyes blazing, enchanting even. “Will you accept my offer?”

  “Yes,” Arik said, long before he could contemplate what an offer from a master illusionist such as Hojo would entai
l.

  “Good. In that case, get some rest. We will start soon.”

  .Chapter Four.

  “The War Priest placed the Mask of the Fallen over his face and strapped it behind his head. At first, the only sensation he felt was one of curiosity, but then his hands began to tremble, his grip tightening on the two swords that he held out at his sides. He noticed something different at the tip of his blades, a nearly invisible string of energy connecting his sword to the throats of his three opponents, all highly skilled Onyxian warriors trained by traitorous Crimsonian instructors. His two blades seemingly took on minds of their own as he spun forward, cutting all three down simultaneously. The War Priest heard laughter deep inside his skull. The bodies fell and he was suddenly sick to his stomach.”

  –An excerpt from Coro Pache: Legends of the War Priest, Fifth Edition, Yoshimura Books, Year 1521, Page 133.

  Hojo didn’t lead Arik Dacre directly to the city of Avarga, the master illusionist clearly wanting to keep off the more traveled pathways. It was Arik’s first understanding of how people like Hojo operated, an illusionist perennially in the shadows, taking a more winding route rather than the most direct option.

  They eventually came to a small, three-room cabin with a thatched roof held down by gray stones.

  “This will do for now,” Hojo said as he slipped his hand into his robes. He returned with an oddly shaped key, one cut into a serrated circle.

  “How far are we from Avarga?” Arik asked, which was something he’d been meaning to ask Hojo over the last day.

  “Can’t you tell?” Hojo, who once again wore his conical hat with the triangular slit over his face, turned to Arik. “You must have noticed the signs.”

  “What signs?”

  “The signs of civilization, one of them being the width of the road. As you approach a city the road texture and its width will start to change. The closer you get, the more signs should become apparent, from the smell in the air to discarded items. We aren’t very far from Avarga, maybe two miles.”