by Ryan Kirk
“Where did he go?”
Daisuke’s body seemed to collapse. He remained on his feet, but his back rounded, and he held his face in his hands. “I may not stop you, but I sure won’t help you.”
Asa turned on a heel and walked back to the inn. It would only take her a few moments to gather up her supplies. She could be off shortly.
A small pang forced her to turn back to Daisuke. She wanted to say something, but nothing came to her mind. A part of her knew she would miss him, but she had the man she had searched so long for, and that was everything to her now. She couldn’t risk losing him. Without a word to her fellow blade, she continued to her room and gathered her belongings.
The snow was falling quickly by the time Asa managed to get on the road. The only place Kiyoshi would have rushed off to was toward Isamu and his camp, so she had taken an extra horse from the inn. She figured Daisuke would have to figure out how to pay for the mount. She galloped the horses, following the trails to the south.
Asa didn’t have much worry about finding Kiyoshi. She knew where he was going, and he would be making the fastest line there. All she had to do was ride faster, and she had two advantages over him. First, she had taken two horses to his one, so she could ride faster and longer than he could. Second, she was younger, and now that her mission was so close, she was driven by a will he couldn’t match. Once she sensed him again, his time here would be short.
Asa rode through the night. She drove the horses as far as she dared and then switched, making the other one trail. She wouldn’t stop, not until she had confronted Kiyoshi. As she rode, she fingered the hilts of her blades, mentally preparing herself for the upcoming fight. She couldn’t underestimate him. He might be much older than she, but Osamu was a dangerous man.
The snow fell through the night, and at times Asa worried she would freeze. But she kept going, heedless of the damage she might be doing to her own body.
The sun rose on a clear and crisp day. The clouds had dissipated over the course of the night, but Asa hadn’t noticed. It was only the piercing light of the sun coming from her left that made her realize it was dawn. The day was gorgeous, and in the light of the sun, she saw a set of tracks not far from her own, heading toward the south. She joined with them, grateful for the small increase in speed. She didn’t assume they were Kiyoshi’s, but if they were, so much the better.
It was midmorning when she saw him off in the distance. Together they rode for a while, Kiyoshi well in the lead, Asa trailing far behind him. If they had been in different terrain, he might have been able to evade her, but in the flat plains of the south, there was nowhere for him to hide. Eventually he must have realized he had no chance, because he stopped his horse and waited for her to approach.
Asa didn’t hesitate. Kiyoshi wasn’t the sort of man who would set a trap. She rode right up to him, charging her horse to only paces away, but he didn’t flinch. There was a look on his face Asa had never seen before, and she wondered if, for the first time, she was seeing a hint of the man who had once been Osamu.
Asa leapt off her horse and landed softly in the snow. It was deeper than she realized; she understood that in a battle, she wouldn’t have sure footing. She advanced carefully, but with every step she took, she thought of her mother and brother. She thought of her father and her last memories of him. Where once she had seen Kiyoshi, now all she saw was the man who had killed her family.
But Kiyoshi didn’t budge, and Asa stopped a few paces away. She had seen his moves several times now, attacks that were far more understandable now that she knew the truth.
“How could you?”
Kiyoshi shook his head. “You already know the answers to all the questions. Whether or not you acknowledge it, you know what I’m trying to do, and now you know why I do it.”
Asa knew Kiyoshi was telling the truth, but his answer angered her all the more. She wanted contrition, sorrow, and begging for mercy, not calm rationality. Her family deserved more.
“You deserve to die for what you did to my family!”
Kiyoshi bowed slightly to her. “Perhaps. At one time, I wanted nothing more, but Masaki wouldn’t let me.”
Asa didn’t know what else to say, but Kiyoshi continued. “If nothing else, I owe you and your family a great apology. I didn’t know your father personally, but I know how he tried to help on that day. In my rage I killed him; he was a man who stood by his morals when few of us did. I am sorry for what happened, and that regret has driven me for more than twenty cycles. But you must get out of the way. I have one final mission to complete.”
Asa didn’t budge, and a hint of anger exploded in Kiyoshi’s face.
“Grow up, girl! This is far more important than your petty revenge.”
Asa’s will solidified, and she settled into a fighting stance. “I only have one question.”
Kiyoshi didn’t respond and didn’t move.
“How did you become a dayblade?”
“The reason so few of us become dayblades is because the skills are more challenging, requiring a more intimate relationship with the sense. Most aren’t willing to put in the work. But our skills, those of both dayblades and nightblades, all come from the same source. I studied and practiced for cycles. I had vowed not to take another life, and becoming a dayblade was the only way I could serve.”
“It was also the greatest disguise you could have come up with. No one would suspect a dayblade of being an old nightblade.”
“True. But enough. I don’t want to fight you, but I will if that is what it takes. I had hoped to show you a different path. You know everything, and you know what drives me. If you’re still set on revenge, there’s nothing more I can do for you. Move or fight!”
There was no question which Asa would choose. She drew both her short blades, settling even further into her stance.
Kiyoshi sighed and turned to his horse. Inside the pack, well hidden, was a sword. He grabbed the hilt and pulled it smoothly from the sheath. Asa was impressed by the grace he brought to such a simple motion.
“I had vowed never to do this again, but you leave me no choice.”
Kiyoshi settled into a stance Asa had never seen before, and for a moment, everything was still.
Asa wasn’t going to wait for the perfect moment. Her time was now. She sprinted forward, covering the distance between them in three steps. She stabbed out with her left sword, a strike that Kiyoshi easily deflected. Asa kept moving forward, allowing her momentum to carry her past Kiyoshi. With a smooth flick of the wrists, Kiyoshi changed the direction of his sword and snapped at Asa’s back.
She sensed the strike coming and blocked it with her second sword. Her two-sword technique was her pride, the skill she had worked the hardest to learn. She could attack with one and defend with the other. She felt invincible with the form.
Asa slid to a stop and came in low at Kiyoshi, slashing at his shins and knees. Kiyoshi kept his blade between her strikes and his legs, and nothing connected. She backed off, debating which attack to try next. Kiyoshi stood, silently studying her. It was time to show him something new.
Over the cycles of study, Asa had perfected several striking patterns with the two blades. She had practiced them over and over until they were ingrained in her body. Her strikes were fast, and she had never seen anyone able to deflect them all. Even when she was younger, she had always known she wasn’t the strongest. She needed something else, something others didn’t practice. Otherwise, how would she defeat Osamu?
Asa slid into the first attack pattern, her blades a whirling wall of steel. Kiyoshi had only a moment to study it, but his reaction was almost instantaneous. He thrust his blade into the pattern, finding a hole no one had ever seen before. Asa sensed it coming but was so confident in her attack, she almost let it through undefended. At the last moment, she realized what had happened and fell to the side, awkwardly dodging the thrust.
If Kiyoshi had wanted to, he could have taken her life in that moment. Instead, he to
ok a step back, keeping a few paces of distance between them. He didn’t say anything, but his look said enough. This was a different man that stood in front of her. She had unveiled Osamu, a man who looked at everyone else as a pest to be dealt with.
Asa’s anger doubled, and she got back to her feet and brushed the snow off her robes. It infuriated her that she was alive only because of his mercy. She would still take his life.
She stepped forward, coming dangerously close to Kiyoshi’s range before launching into another pattern. This time Kiyoshi didn’t have any time to study the attack at all. Despite that, his sword seemed to be everywhere at once, deflecting each of her strikes. But there was no way for Kiyoshi’s one long sword to keep pace with her two short ones for very long. He stood his ground, and eventually Asa broke his defense, one of her blades lashing out at his chest. Kiyoshi stepped back, but not before she drew first blood.
Asa considered pressing her advantage, but Kiyoshi didn’t give her a chance. His retreat lasted for only a moment before he came forward, his sword point leading the way. Suddenly, Asa felt as though she was sensing a double image. Kiyoshi’s blade was a snake, seeming to dart inside her defense at will. She became overly reactive, and in only a moment, Kiyoshi’s sword found her shoulder, stabbing into tissue.
A new look came over Kiyoshi’s face, and he pulled back, getting a couple of paces between them once again. Asa tried to figure his reaction out. Some combination of horror and sorrow. What was going through his mind?
Asa took the time to flex her arm and move her shoulder. It flared with pain, but she still had full range of motion.
Worry was beginning to tinge her thoughts. Twice she had attacked Kiyoshi, and both times she had come out the loser. Yes, she had gotten a strike on him, but that had only been when he was defensive. The moment he had attacked her, even with her two blades she couldn’t counter his moves. Somehow he was interfering with her ability to sense what he was about to do, and she didn’t know how she would beat him.
They met again, and this time Kiyoshi scored a deeper cut through her side. She looked down and saw the blood spreading. She didn’t care. This was the last fight she had to be in. Afterward the Great Cycle could do with her as it pleased.
Asa settled back into her stance, and Kiyoshi gave her a curious look. “You have to know you can’t beat me. You’re going to die if you don’t get help.”
Asa didn’t respond, coming at him with everything she had left. She took three big cuts, ones easy to avoid. Her body screamed at her, but she ignored the pain. She was counting on him not attacking her. Her bet paid off, and he continued to toy with her, easily moving to the side of her cuts. But she was close and he was moving, and she switched into the final attack pattern she had practiced. Her swords flashed one after the other, and Kiyoshi was again forced to move his blade to deflect her attacks.
Faster and faster their blades cut through the air. Asa was moving as fast as she could, relying entirely on her cycles of practice. If she took even a moment to think about her attacks, she would have faltered. In the work of less than a heartbeat, her blade caught his underneath his guard, snapping the sword out of his hands.
Asa felt a momentary wave of triumph, and she struck out at Kiyoshi, who was falling to the ground. She missed, her blade going just above his head. She shifted and struck downward, but Kiyoshi was falling toward her and she didn’t want to lose her balance. Kiyoshi fell into the snow, sending up a light cloud of powder.
Asa tried to shift her weight to strike at Kiyoshi, but her right leg wouldn’t move. She lifted it, only to see her leg come out of the snow with Kiyoshi’s hand gripped tight around her ankle. She frowned as she tried to puzzle out what was about to happen. The realization came too late.
Suddenly every nerve in her body was on fire. She screamed in agony as she dropped her blades and collapsed, her world going black.
When Asa came to, Kiyoshi was bending down to pick up his blade. Every nerve stung deeply, but as she watched Kiyoshi move away from her, she was seized by a new level of rage, a white-hot fire that burned her heart. She wouldn’t be denied, and she wouldn’t continue to live knowing she had been spared by a murderer’s mercy.
Trying to move only made the pain worse. Moving even a hair’s breadth sent waves of agony up and down her body. But as Kiyoshi approached his horse, she didn’t care about the pain. Physical pain was something that would only last for a time. The anguish she would feel if he got away would last forever. She stifled a cry as she reached into her robes.
It was difficult to feel where things were, and she wasn’t sure she would have been able to if she hadn’t practiced this exact motion hundreds of times over her life. Everything was pain, but she trusted her body and trusted her training.
Kiyoshi must have sensed what she was about to do, because he turned around, his blade coming around to defend himself. Asa didn’t even see how many throwing blades she had in her hand, but she threw with all her strength.
Luck was on her side. Kiyoshi managed to get his sword up and block two of the blades with his own sword, but the third embedded itself in his right shoulder. It wasn’t a fatal attack, but she saw his arm go limp and drop his sword, and she saw her opportunity.
Even though the pain was still incredible, the more she moved, the faster it seemed to dissipate. Screaming rage, she shoved herself to her feet, almost falling back to the ground as her world swirled. She braced herself and kept her feet. Kiyoshi had closed his eyes, like he had gone inside himself, trying to heal the injury he had sustained. She knew she only had a moment. She pulled a knife from its sheath and stepped toward him.
He opened his eyes, and she stopped. The moment was hers.
His eyes were defiant, an unquenchable fire. He met her gaze and spoke with a clear voice. “I forgive you, Asa.”
The words didn’t register at all. She stepped forward again, and finally the pain was too much for her to bear. Asa fell forward, stabbing out at him as she fell. She felt the blade dig into his body, but then for the second time, her world went black.
When Asa regained consciousness, she felt the warmth of another person’s hands. She opened her eyes and was confused when she saw Kiyoshi kneeling over her. Hadn’t they just been fighting? She looked down and saw her knife embedded in his abdomen.
Asa looked up again and saw that Kiyoshi’s eyes were glazing over. She rolled away from him, then realized something was wrong. It took a few moments for her memory to return, but there wasn’t any pain as she moved. She scanned her body and poked at her shoulder and realized she had been healed. She frowned and looked at Kiyoshi. Based on the marks and blood around them, he had struggled forward to kneel over her.
The truth came crashing down around her. She had attacked him, and he had spent the last part of his life trying to heal her. With a knife embedded in his belly. She didn’t know the way of the dayblades very well, but what he had done was astounding.
Suddenly feeling foolish, Asa crawled forward to him, tears running down her face. She couldn’t decipher the mix of emotions she was feeling. Was she overjoyed or sad? The two emotions seemed to blend into each other, creating something Asa couldn’t identify. She got to her knees next to him, and he collapsed into her.
Instinctively, Asa reached up and stroked Kiyoshi’s long hair, the way her own mother had soothed her when she had been young. Kiyoshi looked up at her, and Asa thought she had never seen such sadness and emptiness in anyone’s eyes, like staring into a void. “I only ever tried to do my best.”
Asa wondered what Kiyoshi was talking about. Was he trying to explain away Two Falls? She didn’t know, and it didn’t seem important.
She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she just sat there holding on, feeling the energy drain from him.
Eventually he started to shudder, and a sudden urge came over her. She held on to him tightly and shook him back to awareness.
“Kiyoshi, I forgive you.”
He smiled and
slipped away from her again. She could feel his breathing slow, and soon she felt the last of his energy leave his body. She traced it as far as she could, unwilling to let him go, but it dissipated, joining in the flow of energy that moved through all living things. Kiyoshi had joined the Great Cycle.
Chapter 29
Minori was trying to remember the last time he hadn’t been cold. He had memories of sitting in front of fires and basking in the heat of a southern sun, but he couldn’t seem to hold on to them. They were fragments that meant nothing.
What bothered him was that it wasn’t even that cold. Some snow had fallen, but he could remember having sat through much worse in his younger days. Minori hated being reminded how his body was decaying on him, especially as he’d found little to eat in the past few days. He had snuck a little food here and there, but it was hard to hide in a city where everyone was looking for you. Posters of the once influential blade were everywhere, and Minori had to admit, the artist had done a good job of capturing his likeness. If he was seen, he’d be turned in.
Minori had watched the events of the past few days with a detached interest. It was hard to worry much when you stood above everyone else, and he had almost been able to smile as he watched the mobs of people searching the city for blades.
Minori had essentially lived on the rooftops of Haven since fleeing from the guards. He had worked his way closer to Shin’s household, the new palace of the city, studying it and learning the patterns of the guards. For one of the busiest places in the city, Shin’s guards were on top of their duties. Both entry and egress were closely managed, and Shin’s guards had learned lessons from the escapes of the other lords. The servants’ entrances were sealed shut, and everyone went through inspection at the main gate.
