Breaking the Cycle
by Soledad
Author's note: This story has been unexpectedly spawned by the first series of "Travellers' Tales", in which Toshiko Sato from Torchwood gets to travel with the Ninth Doctor for a while and they promptly end up in 12th century Japan, due to the usual TARDIS malfunction.
The ungodly amount of research required to make the story historically plausible led to a sheer fascination with that era and with the completely different Eastern mindset. This story is the result of that fascination – undoubtedly full of misinterpretations on my side, but since it is a work of fiction, written with the utmost respect and with my best abilities to understand, perhaps those misinterpretations can be forgiven.
Regarding the canon about Immortals and Eastern vampires, I did not follow it very closely. I just used pieces and glimpses that would serve this story best.
The day of the First Duel had come again.
Their ongoing battle was an eternal cycle; an immortal struggle that had been going on for almost nine hundred years, and it would go on for another nine hundred years, unless one of them finally managed to kill the other one.
It would be a pyrrhic victory, though; for it would take the winner the only reason to continue to exist.
Twice a year did they meet and fight each other on the anniversary of the days when their lovers had been slain, nine hundred years back. One of them by an enemy arrow, the other, who had driven him to despair and death, by his own hand.
For nine hundred years, they had tried to avenge their lovers by trying to take each other's head, as the heads of their lovers had been taken by unworthy foes. They pinned all their strength and skills against each other, in the hope to still the unbearable thirst for revenge and then, finally, hopefully, be allowed to die.
So far, they had both failed. They were too evenly matched for either one to gain the upper hand.
She-with-the-sword had been born an Immortal, although she hadn't known it until she'd been killed for the first time. But she'd always had a rare affinity for the sword, and she grew up to become one of the very few onna bugeisa, female samurai of her time, a legend among legendary warriors. She had held out on the side of her lord and lover, until he'd send her away to avoid the shame of dying in the company of a woman.
She never forgave him for that – but it did not mean that she wouldn't feel obliged to avenge his death.
She-with-the-war-fan was a dancer; the daughter of a dancer, who could bring down much-needed rain onto the thirsty fields by the beauty of her voice and the power of her dance alone. She'd fallen in love with a peerless young warrior and bore him a son. When her lover was betrayed and driven to seppuku by his own brother, the cruel and heartless shógun, who also had her little son killed, she voluntarily gave herself to the night.
She became a kuei-jin; and undead creature of eternal darkness who kept on existing by draining the chi of living people, by the way of drinking their blood. A creature filled with despair and bitter vengeance.
She haunted the people who'd caused the fall of his lover and drove them to madness and death, starting with the shógun himself, and watched their suffering from the shadows emotionlessly. Punishing them gave her no joy, no satisfaction, though. It was simply something that she had to do.
They prepared themselves for each new duel to come. For nine hundred years, they had honed their skills, learned and trained, focusing all their time and energy on the ultimate goal of killing the other one.
She-with-the-sword fought unnumbered other Immortals on all five continents of Earth. She chose the best and the strongest fighters, so that after defeating and beheading them, she could absorb their power and energy and skills. After each Quickening, she had become stronger, faster, more deadly.
She-with-the-war-fan had joined one of the mightiest shintai covens to be trained in all five shintai disciplines: Blood, Bone, Jade, Flesh and Ghost-Flame. Most kuei-jin can only master one or two of those elaborate disciplines; she had come to master all five. But again, unlike most kuei-jin, she spent every day of her unlife in the coven… to study, to train and to prepare herself. The only time she left was when the days of the First or Second Duel came up.
So had they danced around each other for almost a millennium, confronting each other twice a year and fighting duels of immortal strength versus preternatural powers. No mortal soul dared to approach the place of their fight on those days. Even the ghosts avoided the area on the days of the Duels, as a master of the Blood shintai discipline could even affect spirits in a way that was considered most undesirable.
On the twenty-first day of the First Month, She-with-the-sword arrived to the place that had once been the Awazu Pine Woods – the place where Kiso no Yoshinaka had lost his life nine hundred years before – now a lovely resort, full of pines and pagodas, gentle flowing streams and koi carp ponds. It was the local version of a spa, including one of Japan's oldest hotels, usually brimming with guests… save from this one day.
For the Houshi family, who had run this popular ozen for forty-six consecutive generations, knew all too well that it would be deadly perilous to come here on the twenty-first. Thus it had been time-honoured tradition for Awazu Ozen to close its gates on the twentieth and not open them again until the twenty-second. No-one would disturb the two vengeful souls to bring their centuries-long struggle to an end… if either of them would manage to do so.
She-with-the-war-fan arrived after the fall of night – as a vampire, she could no longer endure sunlight, save for very short periods; certainly not long enough to fight a deadly duel. She came as soon as the sun had sunk behind the mountains, while it was still grey – her honour demanded that she give her opponent the fairest possible chance. In full darkness she had the advantage in any case.
She-with-the-sword was armed with a koshi-gatana, short sword and a hyogo-gusari, long sword, as she had wielded them before her first death on the side of her beloved Lord Kiso. In those long-gone times already, she had been seen as a swordsman worth of a thousand – now she was near invincible with her chosen weapons.
She-with-the-war-fan also had two weapons: the tessen, a folding fan with outer spokes made of heavy plates of iron, designed to look like a normal, harmless folding fan but was, in truth, a deadly weapon; and a short, double-edged dagger, the tantô. Both weapons had originally belonged to her beloved Hôgan. With the war fan, the peerless young warrior had once defeated the legendary sôhei Benkei; with the dagger, he had ended his young life, chosing the way of the warrior instead of being captured by his enemies.
She-with-the-sword attacked first, as always. She needed to use the remaining daylight as long as she could. No mortal or immortal enemy would have been able to stand against her in a long fight; but she knew that against the kuei-jin, her only chance lay in speed. If she could behead her enemy before the kuei-jin could call up any of her arcane arts, victory would be hers… and then she could probably rest.
She-with-the-war-fan was prepared for the attack and reacted lightning-fast, instantly dispersing chi through her blood-stream into every molecule of her being. In so doing, she became as fluid as blood, and thus, preternaturally hard to strike. Although she appeared barely to move, the immortal warrior's perfectly aimed sword simply missed her, slashing the empty air instead.
Now having gotten her opponent off-balance, She-with-the-war-fan rose to counterattack, using the Fourth Jade Discipline. Attuning her body to local streams of chi, she levitated into the air with a fearsome shriek, flying along the updrafts of energy and aiming at her opponent with the tessen. Her aim was true, and she managed to slash her opponent, cutting deeply into the arm wielding the hyogo-gusari, the long sword.
However, a mere injury was of little use when fighting an Immortal. She-with-the-sword simply ignored the searing pain with the routine of long experience, knowing that it would heal without a scar. She utilized the fact that her opponent was currently vulnerable with a swift upward stroke with her koshi-gatana, her short sword, stabbing the kuei-jin in the abdomen.
Of course, a nine-hundred-year-old vampire mastering the Blood disciplines was in sufficient control over her own blood. She-with-the-war-fan called up the Fourth Discipline of the Blood shintai. With this power, she used chi to coagulate her blood and extended a tendril of it to wield it like a liquid whip. The tendril was razor sharp, capable of slicing through flesh and metal with equal ease… a so-called Yang lash, bright red and hissing with roiling energy.
Recognizing the mortal danger she had gotten herself, She-with-the-sword threw herself to the ground and nimbly rolled out of reach of the blood lash. She knew the kuei-jin would not be able to keep up with the energy loss and would have to retreat. And as soon as her blood lash collapsed, she'd be completely vulnerable. Only for a moment or two, but that ought to be enough for an old an experienced Immortal.
Unfortunately for her, the still-not-completely-healed previous injury slowed down her sword-arm. That gave the kuei-jin enough time to resort to the First Bone Discipline, channelling unwholesome Yin energies through her flesh, which instantly became pallid and corpse-like. She-with-the-sword groaned in frustration, knowing that while in this state, the vampire would be preternaturally resistant to damage.
Unless she managed to break her concentration, that is. She-with-the-sword took a deep breath and released a terrible, high-pitched shriek that could have shattered glass, and while her opponent was still under shock, she attacked her flat out, raising both swords to kill.
She-with-the-war-fan recovered from her fright just in time to summon the powers of the Second Blood discipline, forcing Yin energy into her skin and bone marrow. By doing so, she effectively rendered herself transparent and thus invisible.
By less skilled disciples, this power would not have affected clothing, weapons or other objects. But a master like her was capable of bleeding additional Yin onto personal possessions to render them invisible too. Although her presence could be detected by the palpable chill she radiated in this state, that wasn't enough to localize her exactly; less so if she was moving around.
"And here you are, hiding from me again," She-with-the-sword said mockingly. She spoke in modern Japanese; she was, after all, still alive and had interacted with living people in the last nine hundred years.
"I've had enough," She-with-the-war-fan replied in the ancient dialect that had been their mother tongue. Unlike the Immortal, she had been dead through all those years and spent them among other dead people. "Clearly, once again neither of us can win the upper hand. Perhaps we shall have more luck with the Second Duel."
She-with-the-sword made a mocking bow in the vague direction where she guessed her opponent. "I shall see you on the fifteenth of the Sixth Month at Takadachi Castle."
On the fifteenth of the Sixth Month, She-with-the-war-fan travelled to Korogomawa using the Second Jade shintai discipline, known among kuei-jin as "treading the thrashing dragon's tail". By polarizing her chi in line with that of her surroundings, the she made herself preternaturally deft and light, which enabled her to walk safely and steadily even the surface of lakes or oceans.
In this particular state she could also jump long distances, which made travelling a great deal easier. For someone who could use only the dark hours of the night, time was of importance in the Sixth Month.
She arrived at Hiraizumi when the mountain peaks were still ruddy and golden with the waning light of the sun. Once a large and thriving cultural centre, in these lesser times it was just a small rural town in a pleasantly wooded setting, and most of the thousands of temples and noble houses once surrounding it had been destroyed or abandoned after the Fujiwaras were defeated.
The remains of Takadachi Castle – where her beloved Hôgan had gone the way of the warrior to avoid disgrace – were still present on a hill across the road just before one would get to the Chuson-ji gate. A small Buddhist hall stood there now, called the Gikei-do, honouring the peerless young warrior whose life had been cut short due to slander and treachery.
She had come early, even risking to be weakened by the stray sunlight, because she wanted to feel close to her beloved. This diminutive hall stood in the place of the castle chapel where Hôgan had died, nine hundred years ago. No-where else could his spirit be felt so strongly than here. Sometimes she thought that he might be trapped in these stones somehow.
If she killed her opponent tonight, perhaps she would be able to free her beloved, so that he could finally be reborn.
But even though she had come early, She-with-the-sword had arrived even earlier… and she was not alone.
It was the clang of swords that caught the attention of the kuei-jin first. There was already a vicious fight going on, between the Immortal warrior and an ebony-skinned giant compared with whom Benkei, Hôgan's faithful retainer, would seem but a child. He must have been another Immortal, a worthy and likely infamous participant of their eternal Game, for he seemed not so much a fighter as a force of nature… and a particularly dark and destructive one. As they circled each other warily, feinting and testing defences, he seemed slow and careful; but as he moved into the offensive, it was like a huge dark rock coming alive and smiting everything in its way.
There was no way a woman as slim as She-with-the-sword should have been able to withstand him. And yet somehow she did. Half her opponent's size, she balanced out the huge man's brutal strength with unbelievable speed and dexterity – and with the advantage of a much better sword, a hyogo-gusari so sharp it could split a single hair. Blades clashed and sparked, and attacks and parries of surpassing skill were being made, she-with-the-sword moving in like a whirlwind and delivering a flurry of blows and parries too fast for even the preternatural eyes of the kuei-jin to follow.
They fought with superhuman strength and stamina until true night began to fall, without either one finding a chink in the other one's defence. Before it would have become completely dark, however, She-with-the-sword, apparently more accustomed to fighting under poor visual conditions, ducked under the sword-arm of her opponent and dealt him a paralyzing blow in the sternum with the hilt of her sword.
The man lost his balance and fell to his knees, feathering the power of his impact with both hands. Having counted on exactly that all the time, she-with-the-sword grabbed the hilt of her hyogo-gusari with both hands, whirled around and beheaded him from behind with one smooth, powerful move.
Then she fell to her knees, too, stretching both arms away from her body, as if waiting for something. Only moments later, the night eyes of the kuei-jin detected a quick clustering of black clouds above their heads, blotting out the stars. A pale a foggy, misty veil enveloped the loser's headless body; then a bright rope of lightning surged down from the gathered clouds, hit the body, sucked in the pale mist from it and transferred directly to the body of the winner.
It seemed like an exchange of icy white Yin energy, the power of it equivalent to a major electrical storm hitting. The windows of the small shrine Gikei-do exploded, the road lights short circuited, it was almost as if She-with-the-sword had been in the centre of a violent lightning storm.
She screamed in agony as her body absorbed the incredible amount of energy, and for a moment, she just kneeled there, shaking under the onslaught of it, utterly vulnerable. Or she would have been, had anyone been insane enough to approach her during the Quickening, which mortal flesh could not endure.
When it was over, she rose to her feet, shook herself and looked around, her eyes still burning with the unholy light of the successful kill and the gain of her mighty opponent's power and knowledge. Her swords were still engulfed in sizzling energy.
"Where are you, undead vermin?" she called out in challenge. "Come forth and fight me, if you dare. Tonight, it will be our last duel!"
She-with-the-war-fan was reluctant to admit that the fight she had just witnessed frightened her. Her opponent had just gorged herself in Yin energy, while she was weakened by the long journey, as she had not found the time to feed on her way.
But the day of the Second Duel had come, and she could not back off.
Calling up the First Discipline of Ghost-Flame, she allowed eerie chi energy to blaze from her eyes and mouth. This cost her very little strength, being the lowest and easiest of Ghost-Flame disciplines, but people – especially mortals – found it most unnerving. And while her opponent was technically an Immortal, she still had enough mortal superstitions left to give her a definite weakness.
"I am here," She-with-the-war-fan announced, icy blue flames licking from her mouth as she spoke. "And I accept your challenge once again."
As expected, her otherworldly appearance shocked her opponent for a moment, so that she could get closer… just close enough to touch. With the power of the Second Blood Discipline, she deftly moved the blood in her opponent's body, sending it all to her head.
Such manipulation would have a detrimental effect on mortal flesh, leading to immediate death through stroke. As an Immortal, She-with-the-sword temporarily died as well, but she would not remain dead. But through death and revival she would lose much of her newly-gained Yin energy, and that would even the chances out again.
"And then what?" a transparent, ghostly voice asked.
She-with-the-war-fan whirled around and saw an achingly familiar shape solidify next to her.
"Kurô," she whispered, using the nickname that identified him as a ninth son; a name she had never used while they had been both alive. It would not have been appropriate.
He who had once been Minamoto no Yoshitsune gave her a ghostly smile.
"What when your chances will be even again?" he repeated the question. "What will happen then?"
"Then I shall fight her," she explained, surprised that he would even ask such a thing. "And if I manage to take her head this time, then the curse will be broken and you can finally be reborn."
Yoshitsune's ghost laughed quietly.
"Oh, Shizuka," he said, calling her by the name that she had worn while still alive. "Can you not see it? It is not Tomoe's curse that keeps me trapped in the spirit world; that curse had been fulfilled when I died."
"What keeps you here then?" she asked in confusion, the pillars of her nine-hundred-year-long existence crumbling to dust around her.
The ghost smiled at her in compassion.
"You do," he replied simply. "You keep me more firmly rooted in the otherworld than you could have done by exercising the Second Blood Rite on me. You have sworn vengeance in my name; as long as you have not fulfilled it – or have not died a second death trying – I cannot leave, either."
She-with-the-war-fan could feel tears of regret blind her.
"Forgive me, beloved," she whispered. "I never intended to imprison you with my oath."
"There is nothing to forgive," he replied. "You have fought for me magnificently in all these years."
"You watched?" she asked in shock. He nodded.
"Every single duel. You have made me proud, very proud, beloved. But don't you think it would be time to break the cycle?"
"I wouldn't know how," she admitted. "I've been trapped in this cycle for so long; I no longer know how to save myself… aside from taking Tomoe's head."
"Then that is what you will have to do," the ghost replied. "Release her – and yourself – from this vicious cycle of hatred and vengeance, so that you both may rest."
"And if I do?" she asked. "If I indeed manage to kill her, what then?"
"Then I shall wait for the dawn with you," the ghost answered," and guide you through the gates of the spirit world."
"You won't leave me when I free you?" she asked in a frightened, child-like voice.
"I have been waiting for you all these years, beloved," he said. "I shall not leave you now, when we can finally be reunited."
A slight stirring of the body warned them that She-with-the-sword was about to return to life. The ghost faded away, not wanting to distract his eternal champion, who readied herself for the last fight. With a deep gasp for air, the Immortal bolted upright and gave the kuei-jin am disdainful scowl.
"Come on, undead filth, fight me!" she demanded.
She-with-the-war-fan gave no answer. She could feel the Yin energy still oozing out of her opponent's every pore, despite death and renewal. She could only fight that by raising the concentration of Yang in her own body, but that was a risky manoeuvre and required delicate balance. A mistake could have devastating effects on her. Yang-imbalanced kuei-jin usually suffered wild mood swings and impulsive lusts for all possible forms of stimulation… something she could not afford in the middle of a fight, so she had to thread that path very carefully.
Combining internal chi with drawn breath, She-with-the-war-fan inhaled an opalescent cloud of euphoric Yang energy. As a rule, the Lotus Cloud, the Third Flesh Discipline, made mortals and shape-shifters dreamy, giggly and generally incoherent. It had a considerably lesser effect on Immortals, of course, but it did break their concentration in crucial moments.
Even so, She-with-the-sword launched such a vicious attack that all the kuei-jin could do was to fend off her swords as well as she might. Armed with a tessen alone, it was not an easy feat, and soon she missed a step and received a deep cut in her forearm. She lost her balance and dropped the tessen.
She-with-the-sword pressed on with a mighty war cry, hoping to win the duel this time. The kuei-jin, however, simply shook her wounded arm, sprinkling the hyogo-gusari, the long sword of the Immortal with her still Yang-laden blood, calling up the dark powers of the Blood Awaking, the Fourth Blood Discipline, designed to awakening trapped spirits within an object.
In the next moment the hyogo-gusari of the Immortal turned into a poisonous snake, ramming its bent fangs into the arm of its master. She-with-the-sword managed to kill it with her koshi-gatana, theshort sword, but not before her blood would have got flooded with a great amount of deadly poison.
It could not kill her, of course. But it weakened her a great deal; and her prominent weapon was gone.
Before she could have recovered, the equally weakened She-with-the-war-fan launched her final attack. Gathering all her remaining strength, the kuei-jin invoked the Fourth Blood Discipline, the Poison Cloud, exhaling a cloud of concentrated Yin. It manifested as a mass of freezing black vapour and visibly seethed with the destructive energy of raw Yin.
Her aim must have been slightly off due to all that energy she had already lost, because it did not hit the Immortal frontally. It did hit her sword arm holding the koshi-gatana, though; the arm froze hard at once, the metal of the blade corroded, and the grass upon which the dissolving cloud fell withered and died.
She-with-the-war-fan picked up the tessen and tucked it into her belt. Then she produced the tantô and held it, still sheathed, before the eyes of her eternal opponent.
"Our battle ends here and now," she said in the old dialect. "I would offer you the honourable choice to go the way of the warrior, but we both know that it would lead to nothing. Do you accept death and the release from your struggles by my hand?"
She-with-the-sword kneeled on the dead grass and pulled her long, shining hair out of the way of the dagger. She knew she had no other choice. Without her old weapons, she would be easy prey for any bigger, stronger Immortal; and she did not want a stranger absorb her strength and knowledge that she had honed for nearly a millennium."
"Aim well," was all that she answered.
"I offer you my best wishes for a fast and easy journey, Tomoe Gozen," the kuei-jin drew the tantô, held it in both hands and beheaded the Immortal with a single, powerful strike.
They say when an Immortal meets his or her final death and there is no other Immortal close enough to absorb the released life energy, the Quickening goes back to the Source. Whatever that mysterious Source might be, the life force of She-with-the-sword, who had once been Tomoe Gozen, one of the few female samurai and hero of many tales, seemed to go directly to the gathered clouds, jumping from one cloud to another like lightning – or like a spectacular firework.
It was a beautiful sight.
She-with-the-war-fan, who once had been Shizuka, the most famous shirabyoshi dancer of the imperial court, slowly lowered herself onto the dead grass, next to her fallen opponent. She could feel that the sunrise was close, but she made no attempt to sink into the protective earth and hide away in the embrace of the spirits of earth, stone or wood.
She was utterly spent and ready to go. She had fulfilled her dharma, carried out her oath, and Tomoe was finally free. Now she hoped that by giving up her unlife she would be freed, too.
She wondered, though, whether her lover would keep his word and come.
"I am here, beloved," the ghost of Yoshitsune materialized next to her, and when he took her in his arms, they felt surprisingly solid. Cold, yes, since he was dead, too, but solid; and as an undead creature, cold no longer bothered her.
"What now?" she asked.
"Now we wait," the ghost answered simply.
And together they waited for the Sun Goddess to ride up to the sky in her golden chariot; and he remained with her through the agony of the disintegration of her body. And when she had shed the form she had been wearing for so many years, he took her by the hand and led her through the gates of the spirit world as promised.
~The End~