AN: Hey, I can upload documents again! Let's celebrate with another chapter!
The title is "masked" above to keep from spoiling new readers scanning through the list :-)
Things might get a bit dark, here, but Mr. Kimura makes another appearance, so it should all be good.
11. Kaorin vs. Kagura
Shortly before the sun rose, the rain began.
Kagura knelt inside her room, peering around the screen. The courtyard was drenched. All of a sudden, what had been an artistic spectacle had become terrain—the water marking out high and low ground with perfect clarity. The ornamental pond had spilled over, and nearly half the area stood under an inch of water, but a large portion—that nearer to her—remained in the shape of a crescent, stretching from one side to the other. There were other, scattered patches of dry ground.
A servant bowed outside the door.
"Kagura-sama, I beg your pardon. I have spoken with Kaori-dono, and I bring her reply."
"So? What's she say?"
"The Lady Kaori wishes to convey to you that she, also, has no objection to going forward with the duel."
"Alright." Kagura returned her gaze to the gap in the screen. "Tell her I'll be ready."
The servant withdrew.
Earlier, he had come to announce that the site of the single semifinal bout would be the garden of the Lord Magistrate's own estate. However, due to inclement conditions, the Lord Magistrate wondered if one or both combatants would not prefer to postpone the bout.
Kagura had replied that, her opponent agreeing, she preferred to go ahead. Now it seemed that Kaori had no objection either.
The Lord Magistrate had set out garments for her, and she was dressed in a new, red kimono. On the mat at her heels her swords were laid out, side by side. She turned and faced them. In such a posture, it looked as if she were praying; and for the first time in many years, she felt the strong temptation to offer a prayer to the gods. But no, it was her own skill that would decide the matter; the gods couldn't care one way or the other. And no doubt Kaori, or at least those close to her, would be offering their own prayers.
She closed her eyes and remembered the way that Kaori had fought. So that was the Kurosawa style—in her years at the dojo she had never seen Miss Kurosawa herself engage in a bout, and the style as it was practiced by braggarts like Mirata didn't begin to approach that woman's level of skill. So it happened that, for some years after she was a fighter in her own right, she vainly believed that she had outgrown the Kurosawa style.
"Miss Kagura?"
She looked up.
A small girl stood in the doorway, her hair done up in two pigtails. She was smiling politely.
"Eh?—Who're you, the maid?"
Then she recognized Sakaki's tagalong.
"Oh, it's you…" Suddenly feeling vaguely ridiculous, kneeling so rigidly, she shifted into a more comfortable seated posture. "What d'you want?"
"Allow me to introduce myself," said the girl, bowing. "My name is Chiyo—well, just Chiyo. I'm a student of the Way of Sword."
"Oh yeah?" Kagura cocked one eyebrow. Then she smiled. "Well, come on in."
"Oh, thank you!" Chiyo entered and knelt down beside her. Without ceremony, she began: "Miss Kagura, if you don't mind, I wanted to know more about you. I've made it my business to learn more of the Way of the Sword—and seeing as you're such an accomplished swordsman…"
Kagura shook her head. "I'm not," she repeated. "There's just a lot of weak people in the world."
"I see…" Wide-eyed, Chiyo regarded her. "Is that true? It seems to me as if there were a lot of strong people. Only,"—she hesitated—"some are stronger than others. Like you, and…Miss Sakaki."
"You think I'm in the same league as her?"
Chiyo shook her head. "I couldn't say. I don't know very much about these things. As far as I know, you've both beaten every opponent you've faced, but…"
"Hmm. Guess there's only one way to find out, then.—As for me, what's to say? My whole life I felt like I could do it better than anyone else, and so far I've been right."
"Who was your teacher, if I may ask?"
"Didn't have one."
"Then what style do you practice?"
"Don't got one."
"I see." Chiyo was nodding, attentive. "And—forgive me for speaking so bluntly, Miss Kagura, but—you are a ronin, like Miss Sakaki?"
"Heh. Well, not really. That'd be like calling a wild dog a stray, right? Truth is, I never was a samurai to begin with."
"Then…?"
"Hmm?"
Chiyo's eyes had drifted toward the two swords, in their unadorned, black lacquer sheaths. They didn't seem to be blades of high quality—at least, they weren't fancy.
"Oh, those?" Kagura chuckled. "Don't worry, I didn't steal 'em—I'm not some bandit. A real ronin gave 'em to me. I met him not longer after I…set out on my own, in a noodle shop, and…we got to talking, and I ended up following him for a while."
"But he gave you his swords, Miss Kagura?"
"Not for free."
"What did you—exchange for them?"
Kagura shrugged. "The only thing a woman can exchange," she said.
Chiyo, in spite of her age, apparently knew enough to turn pale. "You don't mean…"
"Yep," said Kagura. "I cooked for him. About two months—you wouldn't believe the junk he was eating before. After that, he told me the life of the swordsman wasn't for him anyway…he'd just grown up in a samurai household, got the swords handed down to him. He even joked that maybe some god had switched our souls at birth. Anyway, they don't look like anything special, but—they're good. Won me more fights than I can count by now.
"But what about you? Why are you following that—Miss Sakaki, around like that?"
Chiyo looked away. "As I said," she answered, sounding somewhat evasive, "I'm a student of the Way of the Sword."
"You seem kinda well brought-up, though. Heh. You're kind of a ronin yourself, aren't ya? Don't worry, you don't have to tell me what happened."
Chiyo was silent. Kagura understood—with the battle of Sekigahara still a recent memory, there were no end of wanderers from all classes, with their stories of how they had become alone, impoverished, shamed. Herself a traveler, she had heard them all.
"Your master. You don't mind telling me, what's her style?"
"She calls it the Kamineko style, Miss Kagura—but I don't know where she learned it. Form what she said, I thought that…" her voice dropped momentarily, "a god might have taught it to her."
Kagura laughed. "Ha! That's good. The gods don't go around teaching people how to swordfight. But with talent like that—she's kind of like a god herself, isn't she?" At that, her laughter trailed off, and her eyes lingered in a corner of the ceiling. She'd delayed too long, perhaps. She stood. Then, impulsively, she reached down and ruffled Chiyo's hair. "Hey, wish your big sis luck! I don't bear that Kaori any grudge, but I want to fight your master. You be sure to tell her that, too."
"Oh," said Chiyo, "here, allow me—" Quickly, she moved to help Kagura attach the swords to her sash. "Miss Kaori has so many students, you see, it hardly seems right…"
"Hmph." Kagura said nothing, but allowed herself to be assisted.
"But are you really going to fight in all this rain…?" said Chiyo.
"It'll hurt her just as much as it hurts me," said Kagura. "A samurai can't decide when he's going to fight—or die. If I know anything about the Way of the Sword, I know that much."
Under the awning of the porch, five chairs had been assembled. In the center sat the Lord Magistrate, her legs crossed, belligerently cooling herself with a fan in spite of the chill and humidity.
"Honestly, Yukari," muttered Kurosawa, seated next to her, "at a time like this…?"
"I paid three whole ryu for this fan!" snapped Yukari. "It's gold-plated, gold-plated! You think I'm about to stop using it just because summer's over? Huh, think again!"
"Stingy," muttered Kurosawa. It seemed that even the inheritance of her father's vast wealth had failed to change her friend's miserly habits.
"What's that, Nyamo?"
"Nothing, nothing, your Lordship…"
On the other side of her, her husband, Kimura, sat with an weirdly rigid posture, his hands on his knees. The water poured down in front of him. He resembled some sort of ascetic monk.
On the other side of Lord Yukari sat Chihiro, Kaori's chief student. Beside her sat Sakaki, silent and motionless, her hands placed together in her lap. In front of them kneeled several more of Kaori's students, all dressed in white. It was a strange little scene underneath the dripping eave, so silent and still, like the miniature dolls assembled for the children's festival.
Chihiro raised her head. "Oh, look; they're coming…!"
"Eh?" Yukari turned her head.
Kurosawa's expression was serious as she watched Kaori emerge from the house, from her quarters, on their left.
Yukari was squinting. "Mm. Sort of hard to see with all this water, isn't it? Wish they'd just put it off. Samurai are so damn stubborn."
Kaori had stepped off the porch and was standing in the rain. Her feet were submerged to their ankles in water. She stood with her head slightly lowered, her hands at her sides.
"Oi, Nyamo. What odds do you give your girl?"
Her eyes fixed on Kaori, Kurosawa didn't answer.
Kaori looked up. The rain fell around her, but she stood upright and still. Across the courtyard Kagura appeared. She let herself down carefully from the porch, her attitude casual, and finished tying back the sleeves of her kimono—hers red to Kaori's white, both colors washed pale by the rain.
"Ooh," muttered Yukari. "This should be good."
"Shh,"—Kurosawa held her finger to her lips.
For once her friend, even the Lord Magistrate, was silent.
The man who had served as herald in the semifinals, Momota Chiba by name, stood underneath the awning opposite them. He raised his fan and pronounced:
"Kaori-sama, Kagura-sama. Your honor will serve better than any rule I could hand down. May the gods favor who they will—begin!"
The figures of Kaori and Kagura appeared small and far apart, not at all like the dangerous human beings the onlookers knew them to be. It was impossible to make out their expressions. When the signal was given, Kaori stood by the porch, never having reached for her sword. The distance separating them was some one fifty paces.
"My," said Kimura suddenly, in his monotone, startling everyone. "She certainly has grown into a fine young woman."
Kurosawa nodded. "She has."
Yukari, assuming he was referring to Kaori, took no notice.
"Her figure—is so statuesque and womanly. Upright, bold, and so large, like a sunflower…"
"Dear," said Kurosawa flatly, looking sideways at him.
"Ah," he sighed. "But if only she were wearing a white kimono—!"
Slowly, Kagura drew her sword, the noise mixing with the patter of falling water. No light reflected off the metal. Then she began to run forward soundlessly, following an uneven course as she kept to the dry, raised ground; but her silence belied the incredible speed with which she moved. Although Kaori had begun to move an instant later, they met only a short distance from the place where she had stood.
There was no sound. The combatants moved around each other as if they had only brushed elbows.
Kagura stood in the middle of the courtyard and turned, bringing up her swords. Kaori stood just outside her reach, half-facing her. In her hand was her short sword, still in its mother-of-pearl sheath.
She didn't understand what had happened. She must have reacted on instinct—otherwise, she knew, she would be dead. Somehow she and Kaori had moved close enough to embrace each other, and still neither of them had suffered any injury—she only remembered the feeling of silk brushing up against her.
The expression on Kaori's face was almost listless.
"Is that the Kurosawa style?" said Kagura—and was surprised to find her voice hoarse.
"Yes," whispered Kaori. "The Springtime Passing cut. You're extremely fast—most swordsmen wouldn't be able to avoid it. My compliments."
"I don't remember that one," said Kagura.
"You don't…?"
Kaori looked at her. She was clearly puzzled, but said nothing further.
Kagura spread her balance, putting each foot on two separate, small rises. Kaori didn't move. Kagura replaced her short sword in its sheath, and put both hands on the hilt of her katana. She needed focus.
Kaori stood on a single spot of ground, water on all sides of her.
"Your style…" she said.
"What about it?"
"It is the Kurosawa style."
Kagura spit into the rain. "Used to be," she said. "Not anymore."
Kaori's eyes were beginning to widen.
"I guess Sensei never told you about me?"
Kaori shook her head. "Then, you—"
"That's right," said Kagura, and her gaze strayed briefly over her right shoulder—to where the spectators sat, craning their heads to watch. "Those students?—should be my students."
"If you abandoned the Kurosawa style," said Kaori, "then it isn't for you to pass on. Your skill is great—but win or lose, I will remain true to my school's teaching."
But even as she spoke, her eyes were wandering also. When Kagura had glanced back, so had she, and now she looked for a moment at a certain person seated there.
Kagura leapt. Even as she leapt backward, Kaori drew her sword; she landed on the porch with the blade in one hand and the scabbard in the other, her stance open. Kagura stood where she had only a moment before. She swung, and but she misjudged the distance through the water, and Kaori began to move to the side.
Kagura's feet dipped down into water as she followed. It was cold, and clung to her ankles like sinking sand. Kaori, above her, had the advantage, but the low-hanging eve prevented a downward stroke. In silence they moved down the south face of the courtyard, Kagura splashing quietly. Then when Kaori passed behind a pole, quick and white, her form disappeared.
"No!" Kagura gasped out loud. Even as she fell for the trick she understood it, but she was powerless to stop her body. Panicking, she had swung blindly, and Kaori—moving on light girl's feet—darted back out the way she had come, and leapt down into the water. As Kagura's stroke extended, the short sword flashed and cut her side.
"Stupid," muttered Kurosawa—her knuckles pressed to her mouth. "Too eager. Leave yourself open."
"Just whose side are you on?" came Yukari's voice, loud in her ear.
Kagura fell back. The wound was shallow—she'd flinched—but it had only been a preparatory cut. Now Kaori was advancing, swinging sword and scabbard, as she had advanced on Baiken the day before—rhythmic and seamless. Her sword sent beautiful arcs of water through the air as she spun. The defense of the Kurosawa school was spectral, like a puff of gas floating on a marsh, and then from nowhere it erupted.
Kagura had carefully mapped the terrain before she charged, and knew more or less where to place her feet as she ran backwards. She didn't attempt to counter. As she moved she stabbed Kaori with her eyes, searching for one small gap in the vast, impossibly elegant sweep of her defense; but there was nothing. Her hair tied back with a strip of white silk, its loose ends flying around her face as she moved, Kaori came on.
They reached the edge of land. Kagura splashed back into the water around the site of the pond, keeping her guard high; and as she sensed the rhythm changing, Kaori checked herself. She stood on the high ground, in a position of certain victory; Kagura was sunk to her knees. She stopped with her sword held behind her head, ready to deliver a fatal blow. It was such a subtle, but still definite contrast between a position of absolute victory and absolute defeat, that many a swordsman would have surrendered then.
Her eyes beside the point of her blade, Kaori looked at Kagura. Everything changed.
Kurosawa nearly rose from her seat. "It can't be—!"
It can't be. Kaori's body shook like a reed hit by a single blast of wind. Her sword wavered. When she had looked into Kagura's eyes, a force had run through her body through the tip of her sword, like poison. For a moment she had no strength. Then as she recovered, Kagura leapt from her position with a roar rising deep in her throat.
With her first stroke she cut the scabbard of Kaori's sword in half, sending it flying from her hand. Her second sheared straight across Kaori's face—but rather than her head rolling, her headband only fluttered away and landed in a pool of water, and her hair fell loose. She staggered back. Kagura swung again, and the keen of the metal rose well over the rain.
Kaori jumped ten paces to the right and landed on dry ground, on her feet. She gripped her sword with both hands and stood.
Was that, she thought, even as her opponent streaked toward her, the Killing-Stroke Eye…?
The moment before Kagura reached her, a slick of dark hair fell in front of her right eye.
All five spectators, and the seven girls kneeling in front of them, were on their feet. The Lord Magistrate let out a horrible shriek and immediately fell backward.
Breaking her fall Chihiro, her face already tear-streaked, turned toward Kurosawa howling: "Sensei—!"
Kimura gaped. The girls clutched at each other.
Still hanging in the air in front of them, like an enormous flower that had bloomed there, was the blood spurt. It engulfed Kagura who stood there stricken, her sword motionless in mid-blow. As Kaori fell backwards, weightless, Kurosawa dashed across the courtyard, plowing through puddles, throwing off her over-coat as she did so.
Kaori fell face-up. Kurosawa was beside her, tearing the sash from her own kimono; and as she did so her two swords, priceless treasures forged in the time of the Heike, fell in the dirty gray water. Kagura stood over them. Her face was blank, her sword still raised. The blood had covered the right half of her face and chest and stained the sword all along its length.
Kaori was thrashing with all the force of a dying fish. Holding her, rolling her with sure, powerful movements, Kurosawa was winding the sash around her body. When it was fixed in place, she tore away Kaori's own sash and wound it, as well, just below her shoulders. The blood still pumped into the water.
Kagura had thrown her sword away. With shaking hands, she removed her sash and, holding her kimono closed with one hand, held it down to Kurosawa, who took it wordlessly. When all three were fixed in place, the flow of blood seemed to slow. One of Kaori's arms was pinned to her side, turning white. The other lay on the white gravel not far off, severed just below the shoulder.
Now guards and attendants came splashing towards them. The world seemed to sway on its foundations, and the air was thin. Kagura gasped.
Standing, Kurosawa barked orders at the attendants even as they knelt to lay hands on Kaori: "Whatever you do, keep pressure applied! The cut is clean, but she doesn't have much time before she bleeds to death! Just be careful and—"
They were gone.
Kurosawa and Kagura stood together.
On the porch, the Lord Magistrate had curled up in her chair, clutching her knees, and shrieked: "Blood…blood…blood!—Get it away!" meanwhile Chihiro tried to calm her. Sakaki had never moved, and looked on impassively. Kimura, for his part, regarded his wife with quiet respect where she stood, breathing heavily.
The herald's fan came down: "The winner is Kagura-sama! Well fought."
There was a spark of satisfaction in the old man's eyes—he was, after all, a samurai.
But as for Kagura herself, she knelt on the ground near her discarded sword. It was impossible for the onlookers to see, and even had they been closer, it would have been difficult to tell the rainwater streaking down her face from her tears. But she was silent. Her hands clenched her knees. When she looked up, Kurosawa was looking down at her,.
"She should've blocked," said Kagura. "I-if she'd blocked…I'd have disarmed her."
Kurosawa didn't answer.
Kagura lowered her eyes. Looking at the red of her kimono, further stained with blood, one thought—absurd in its phrasing—came irresistibly, again and again, into her mind:
Why do I always have to be so boorish?
AN: One short chapter, then it's Kagura vs. Sakaki all the way.