Kusabimaru
Part 3 of I wish there was another way - Shura ending
The day Akizaemon Terazawa first laid eyes on the boy, a storm was coming. The embroidered surface of the ocean moved restlessly enough to be visible from the rooftop of his household.
Despite the unbreakable focus he was renowned for, the gale had distracted him for several minutes by then. He watched the waves swell, alone and silent, with a worn ledger untouched on his crossed legs.
He thought of his servant's report from a few minutes before. He wondered, in the intimacy of his soon to be broken loneliness, if the sight ahead could bring him an omen.
The sound of footsteps came to break his reverie. Only then did Akizaemon feel free to turn away from the ocean. When he faced the entrance to the rooftop, he met two sights - one familiar, and one he would never forget from that day on.
His son Saburo, half-clad in a spare suit from the armory, sported the grumpy expression of when he was bothered in his rare free days. In the iron grip of his arms, a young man barely fidgeted, too tired and weak to put up a real fight. In his arms he held a long, dark object Akizaemon could not identify yet.
"It's him, father. Ayame caught him running across the courtyard. He must have been about to steal -"
"You may lave him here, Saburo," he interrupted him, firm yet fascinated. "That will be all."
The boy did not respond to his inquisitive gaze. He kept kneeling, almost obstinate in his humble demeanor. Given the calm light in his eyes, his trembling seemed to come from exhaustion and hunger.
In his stillness, Akizaemon was finally able to make sense of the dark shape in his grasp. It was a katana, almost as long as he was tall. Impassible, the boy clung to the weapon as if his life depended on it.
Could he have made it to their armory? It didn't seem plausible, Akizaemon mused.
"Boy," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "I see you are armed. Don't try to play any tricks on me, or you'll be dead before you know it. Just tell me... were did you get that from?"
As he reached out his hand to grasp the hilt of the katana, the boy clutched it tighter. His sunken eyes seemed even wider than the long starvation had made them.
"Don't touch my sword," he said, looking dazed and feral for the smallest instant. Right after, he calmed down and lowered his head further. "Please."
Akizaemon's frown got deeper in confusion. Nonetheless, he wanted to show he would not endanger him. He knelt at his side, and tentatively lowered a hand on his shoulder.
"It is fine," he said, surprised by his own gentleness. "What do you mean, your sword? Is it truly yours?"
"It is, my lord."
The boy blinked fast, hiding further in the shadow of his small, curled up body.
"My sword is all I have left."
Akizaemon observed him further. What his frail, thin frame hid, his visage revealed; he had to at least be in his adolescence, if only at its start. Albeit torn and dirty beyond recognition, the rags that had once been his clothes seemed to have been woven in precious fabric. His hair, overgrown and glued together by filth, sported lone white strands here and there.
In other times, he would have assumed he was a scavenger, and had found all those goods on a battlefield. If true, he was a lucky one – the katana seemed of exquisite craftsmanship for sure. And yet, something about him still seemed off to Akizaemon.
He seemed too peculiar to be a simple thief, he decided. He would ask questions.
"A war orphan, hm?"
The boy nodded, but said nothing further. Tight-lipped to boot, Akizaemon thought. This kid was not a simpleton.
"You won't get hurt here. Don't be afraid. What is your name, boy?"
He closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh before answering.
"I don't have one."
On the horizon, the ocean continued its race. Dark clouds twirled in the skies, crowning their heads with an eerie light. He took it as a warning to end it fast.
"Kid, I don't know who you are or where you come from," Akizaemon said. "But I do know where we are now. You are standing on the soil of my lords, the Fujiokas, and this land has not seen a war in over a decade."
The grimace on the young's man face eclipsed all the controlled calm he had been sporting up to that moment. As good as he had been at holding it together, there must be a great burden weighing on his heart.
If this boy meant danger, he didn't need to care, nor ask anything further. He could have him kicked out of the building in a moment. And yet, something within him – maybe the memory of smoke and blood, of mutilated bodies – made suffocating pity twist his judgement.
He was getting old, after all.
"That sword is a good artifact," Akizaemon observed in a gentle tone. "You could always exchange it for some food and shelter. It looks like you need – "
"My lord, I thank you humbly," the youngster said, interrupting him with renewed vigor. "But this is not what I am looking for."
Stunned into silence by his brashness, Akizaemon looked at him. He had eyes full of unrivaled nobility, even in the state of withered, fallen creature he found himself to be. There was a large, dark secret hiding behind his lips. And yet, his soul shone a light he had never quite met within his lifetime.
"My lord... I need to learn how to fight."
Akizaemon's eyes moved back and forth – his pale face, his mysterious katana.
"You what?"
"I will become a warrior," he decreed, with growing resolve. "And if you are to be the one to train me, you will find there is much to gain. I sought your name in the village nearby, so I could come see you."
He pulled a slip of paper out of his rags. The samurai was stunned to recognize his own family name, written in a flowing, elegant calligraphy.
"You can read and write?"
"That I do," the young man admitted. "But it is not important. I am to live by the blade. Put me to the test, and you will find... I am a lot more resilient than I look."
A few moments of silence after, the echo of thunder struck the sea from a distance. The small head rose to face him him without fear. It was then, in the evanescent light of the storm, that Akizaemon realized what was so strange about him.
Despite the many tears and the slashes in his rags, the kid didn't show a single scratch on his body.
In the years which followed the adoption of Akizaemon's fifth son, the Terazawa household never ceased to conjecture about him.
When the winter sun drowned into the ocean, taking the daily occupations away, the family and retainers flocked to dinner together. If the round of usual topics happened to die down – lord Fujioka, the Interior Ministry, the constant squirmishes at the border – the name of Ryuunosuke rose like a breath of wind, whispered and revered and feared.
He often took his meals alone and late, focused without end on a training he claimed to need to catch up on. Why that was, or why the head of the family had so promptly chosen to adopt him, was still a mystery to most of the clan.
Thanks to his evasive nature, their doubts often had a chance to be spoken freely.
Saburo in particular was haunted by the memory of that day. He spoke of it to trusted people only; yet, many versions of the story circulated among the servants, like a legend of ages past.
He remembered the day a new brother and a dense fog of secrets had entered his life, as sudden as a sea storm. He could recall the paleness on his father's features with the same accuracy. He had remained just outside the dojo doors, on his knees and paralyzed, as if he had seen an apparition.
The boy could barely hold his sword up, Akizaemon had claimed; and yet he had to be fast beyond a mortal's grasp. Not a single hit could touch him – or wound him, at least, from what he had perceived.
He would adopt him as Ryuunosuke, herald of the dragon, and train him as a warrior. When Saburo had asked why, he had not answered. He had muttered something about his movements, flowing like heavenly water. He had never been the same since that day.
For sure, Ryuunosuke was an obedient son. Albeit reluctant to do anything but train, he had helped with administration more than once. His wisdom, culture and intelligence had proven equal to most of the adults in the clan. And yet, his character didn't escape his siblings. They knew how he stayed silent if not compelled to speak, and how a fever, a thirst for fighting, seemed to constantly consume him from the inside.
Many wondered if he was actually a ghost. It was easy to imagine him, fast and flowing as he looked in his combat, bewitching and talking Akizaemon into adopting him.
Credence was fed by the physician, who often claimed he had never treated a single wound on his body. When the years, and the rumors, caught up with Ryuunosuke's arrival, people started theorizing even more.
One day, the Interior Ministry called a massive influx of samurai to the north. No explanation was given to the Fujiokas, if not vague mentions of a great loss in the war. While the family complied without question, those who remained talked. They shared stories of a distant land in the north, and its mysterious demise.
Some claimed an illness, or a massive threat, had razed it to the ground. Others said the daimyo had self-destructed after decades of resistance, taking thousands of Ministry soldiers with him.
Underhanded, many more colored voices began to circulate. Stories of demons, wrathful spirits, revenge. And some, as Ryuunosuke grew in stature, prowess and ethereal paleness, wondered if he had ever been a part of it.
The rumors never reached the head of the family. As far as he was concerned, Akizaemon loved him as he loved his other sons. He had been more than happy to revive his life of retired samurai, engaged in their constant training.
Nobody could have guessed that, in the end, his own doubts consisted of much of the same.
"My son," he said one spring, after Ryuunosuke had beaten him in combat for a week without truce. "You know I care for you deeply. The choice I made, I never regretted. There was truth in your words."
"You are kind to me, father," he replied, sheathing his sword with the grace of his every movement. Adulthood was turning him into a gorgeous man, born to dance and fight in the eyes of whoever saw him.
Akizaemon knew the war would call to him eventually. His precious son would leave, stolen by the military duties of all Ministry cadets.
As confident as he was in him, he longed to receive some answers before that happened.
"I still cannot help wondering why you came to me, Ryuu," he admitted with affection. "There was so much anguish in your dragon eyes. Your brothers never were as troubled, nor careful, as you are. Will you ever tell your old father? Where did you come from... who did you use to be?"
When he found it in himself to turn around, the young man had a wistful, wounded look in his gaze. For a fleeting, enchanted moment, Akizaemon felt that his heart was completely open.
He went back to being the lone boy on his floor, holding on to the same katana still at his side. His brown eyes showed a mixture of immense pain and longing, with the touch of something immortal. It was the touch Akizaemon had felt at the doors of his family dojo, many years before.
After a few moments, it was almost all gone. His son went back to being his own cryptic self – and yet, sparse tears glistened in his eyes. The young man knelt graciously at his side, and held the withering hand of his generous parent.
"Dear father," he said, his head low. "I care for you very much, too. I will never forget your generousness and your sacrifice. I owe you all I have. And yet –"
"You really won't tell me, will you?"
"Father... not now. Maybe, someday, I will be able to. If I ever have the chance, I promise I will. But now..."
"It's alright, Ryuu," the old samurai reassured him, with a comforting caress on his smooth hair. "You are my youngest and my most brilliant son. Under your silent heart, I know you have a noble soul. I just wish I could see the demons that torment you... to help you, if possible, chase them away."
Ryuunosuke, back on his feet, held both of his father's hands.
"You gave me all I could ask of you," he said, a hint of a melancholic smile on his lips. "The chance to fulfill my purpose. Revenge."
Akizaemon did not understand, but was content with the answer. He gave up on asking, and began waiting.
The late autumn night of his fate came for Ryuunosuke unexpectedly. It took the form of a resounding alarm across the estate, with terrified screams and pleads for help.
In virtue of his speed – or so they called it – he was the first line of defense for any attack on the estate. As usual, he rushed outside with his father, his sword unsheathed.
For the first time in too many years to count, he felt his limb freeze into place, leaving him powerless.
He had only heard stories of the sight in front of him. Headless decayed warriors, once valiant protectors of their land. Heroes corrupted by misfortune, time, tragedy. Ghosts of the past.
The tall malignant spirit turned to face him, without any apparent intention to move. In his blind hands, the shape of an enormous bow glowed, bathed in purple flames.
"It's you," Ryuunosuke breathed.
Nobody understood.
Although Akizaemon had never dealt with spirits before, he felt his terror rise tenfold at the deadly pallor of his son. He looked whiter than the headless ghost itself. He didn't wait a second further when Ryuunosuke yelled to run, that he would take care of this himself, and everyone would be safe.
He prayed for what felt like hours, huddled to his wife and surrounded by his servants. When his son returned, Akizaemon understood that something old and bitter and profound had clicked in his soul.
"Ryuu," he wheezed. "What – "
"It is alright, dear father," his son answered in a hollow voice. His eyes were glassy and very, very far away. "He is gone."
"How did you – "
"I prayed for him."
Akizaemon shuddered. Fear caught his mind in a whirlwind. For a fleeting instant, all the malevolent words about his son – all the words he had ever ignored – felt true.
"I never asked you to explain, my son," he said, stern. "But this time..."
Ryuunosuke clenched his fist, and turned his back.
"He was a lost spirit, father," he explained, with a little more energy. "I knew him. He... after all this time... was still looking for me, and found me. But the reason why –"
He turned to the old samurai, grasping his shoulders with more feeling and animation than Akizaemon had ever seen in him. Although he knew his son was going to speak, he didn't need to wait to know what he would say.
The time had come, at last. Whatever he had been waiting for.
"Dear father... I must leave at once. I know what I dedicated my life to. That he came to me must have been a sign... I know I will be ready."
"I won't stop you, my son," Akizaemon said, despite his worry and tiredness. "Just see that you return, and tell me about it, if you can."
In the warmth of the room, at ease, they embraced. With all of himself, Akizaemon hoped he would not feel regret for letting that starving, scrawny boy into his household.
Not because the swirling storm could have been a bad omen, or because his servants whispered ghost stories he pretended he didn't hear. Not because his odd child, fast or slow, never got hurt for reasons he couldn't explain.
He feared the regret that comes with fatherhood – to lose the ones you truly love.
Ryuunosuke was at the edge of the door when he stopped to speak again. His father listened, trying not to focus on the fact they may be the last words he'd ever hear from him.
"Father," he said. "My sword... it is named Kusabimaru. I thought you should know."
"Kusabimaru," Akizaemon murmured.
"Yes. Goodbye, dear father."
In the silence left behind by his son, the old samurai sat, pondering on that name so profound for a blade. Strong ties, to important things.
At long last, he understood. Wherever his son was going, part of his heart must still be there, years and years later.
He found a temporary peace, and waited again – this time for closure.
In the abandoned wasteland which once carried the name of Ashina, a young warrior made his way through forgotten paths.
The solitary earth carried signs of devastation wherever he looked. The variety of it made his stomach turn.
Some patches of land were still dark with bloodshed, carrying the remains of uncountable victims. Some others were strewn in bones, knotted with the grass in the forest, and flashed white when he turned his gaze. He could see where the flames had scorched tree trunks, and where animals had fed on the mismatched skeletons in his path.
Ashina was a graveyard, and he was its last vengeful spirit.
He only stopped walking when he reached his chosen hideout, near the rubble of what he recognized as the old Sculptor's temple. Nothing was left of the building but carbonized remains. Yet, timid bamboo sprouts had begun to regrow in the same shape.
He couldn't mistake the layout of the place for anywhere else. What he thought he had forgotten of his last night in Ashina always returned to him through nightmares. The temple, stage of his desperate escape, had remained in his mind all along.
Starting from there, he wandered Ashina for days, exploring the place he had once called home. He looked for clues, explored, tracing the steps of what he knew could have happened. If the demon was anything like he expected him to be, he would be wandering too – reliving the smell of blood and terror, the thrill of murder.
It couldn't have taken place too far from when the demon had turned. It had been the greed of his land, after all, to make him lose himself.
When he finally saw him, it was from a distance, at the heart of a battlefield he had torn apart and made bigger with his fury.
Though his lips were sealed, the young warrior's entire soul trembled in agony. His heart screamed for endless, terrible moments.
He was, at once, just the way he remembered him, and nothing like it. The familiar body of his vessel, identical in shape and size, burnt yet never wore out. Engulfed by eternal flame, doomed to immortality, he paced the battlefield in torment, with no prey left to consume in that deserted land.
Though free in movement, his whole body was tied up by strings and fabric. On his back, a strong rope twisted on itself, holding up two large twin odachis.
He had prepared for anything – this scenario especially. Still, as he snuck closer with his drawn blade, the samurai was deafened by his own heartbeat. He prayed to himself that his steps would be silent enough, his movements quick as needed.
It happened in an instant. The ear-piercing scream of Shura stabbed from behind, the Mortal Blades falling to the floor, useless. The rush to grab the crimson sword, the failure to reach its black counterpart. The inhumanly swift attack being blocked, and the silent plead to Kusabimaru – to resist the unrestrained heat of the other blade, handled by a demon.
Then Shura felt a violent kick in his stomach, and fell on his back. He wailed, like a tortured animal.
"Look at me, you monster."
In the glacial suspension of his words, Kuro undid the short bun of his hair, letting it flow for the first time since his departure from Ashina. His bowl cut, just slightly longer, carried the same white strands.
With a slow, calculated movement, he stuck Kusabimaru in the soil between the two of them. Then, unafraid of the consequences, he drew the Mortal Blade. He let his temporary death take its course. The demon, still dumbfounded, assumed a fighting stance he remembered with fierce love and pain.
"They call you Shura," Kuro said hatefully, clinging to the fiery sword to get back on his feet. "But I call you what I want."
A flinch in Shura's posture lit a glimmer of resolve in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, his desperate plan of a lifetime had a chance to work. He did not expect as much – but he found hope.
"Even if you can take my life, you will never make me forget who he really was," he yelled. "Never!"
The demon moved like a puppet, soulless, aiming for his chest. Kuro blocked with even finer speed. For over ten years of his life he had studied his opponent, creating all scenarios and possibilities in his mind, the way he remembered him. No matter how painful, he had had to remember – just to get to that battlefield prepared, and hopefully leave victorious.
He held the crimson blade into place with unrelenting determination. Even if his muscles couldn't compare to the strength of a demon, he was fueled by pure spite, and so much more.
"I couldn't stop you in time, before you took him from me. I was weak... but I have changed. I have grown stronger. I am different. Whether you want it or not, today I will bring him back."
With a sudden start, he moved Shura's blade away, and blocked his immediate attack with a pose easier to hold. What he couldn't find by himself in patience, his father's training had made up for through the years. The time to put it to good use was now – his only goal, since that distant day.
"If what you want is to kill, come and get me, if you can."
The clash of their weapons truly began after that. Though he had not given signs of receiving his words, the flaming red eyes had ignited, and the demon moved faster with each hit. Kuro had to collect every memory, every influence, to cling to the hope of staying alive.
This was no ordinary blade, no ordinary opponent. He knew better than anyone else.
And there was a reason, he was bitterly reminded, why he had trained to fight with his vision impaired.
"Wolf," he called out, no longer able to fight the sting in his eyes. "If there is anything left of you in here, please, listen to me. I have come to free you. I do not care what you did... what you let happen to yourself... it was long ago, and you have to leave."
Unable to acknowledge, Shura let out loud grunts and kept fighting. Kuro, although fatigued, did not give up.
"I cannot say I understand," he continued. His tears now formed small streams on his smooth face, washing the ash off of his skin. "I will never understand what you went through... my loyal Wolf, with the cruelty of your fate, and all the things I forced you into. But... I do understand how much of it was my fault. I asked so much of you. I didn't listen enough. I hope that... wherever you are now, you can find it in yourself to forgive me."
Their bodies gave a start, and a swift, dark cut slashed Kuro's chest. Although the wound was superficial, the intensity of that feeling liberated a scream he had been holding in since the start.
The air burned through his lungs, ridding his eyes of their moisture and setting his mouth on fire.
"Wolf," he cried. "Wolf, where are you? Why are you doing this to me? Please, lay your spirit to rest. I am here to help you."
Their blades came to a stalemate again, and Shura got closer, his lost red eyes aflame. Kuro felt every fiber of his body tremble with the effort. His strength was waning, and so was his will to fight.
He should have known, he thought, his face scorched by his own crying. Even the barriers of a decade couldn't have protected him from grief.
"I do not know what happened that night," he lamented, unable to stop himself. "Wolf, I would have done anything. I would have taken care of you. I would have eased your suffering. You needed but to talk. Why did you forsake me? I was right there... and you left me behind."
Though they were meant as an offense, the weight of his own words deprived Kuro of the last of his resolve.
If this was what it meant – to free the world, to free him – he wished to die, here and now.
For a long, agonizing moment, the thought rang throughout him with devastating clarity. Then, like the slow trickling of his tears, he felt the stance of his odachi fall, signaling him the time had come. His training, his hope, had been for nothing.
It wasn't until he opened his eyes again that he understood.
His own breath, still inexplicably there, awoke him. He looked down. The black blade was moving downwards, guiding his own. The crimson blade – idle in his grasp – sank deeper in Shura's chest by the second.
Taken by surprise, Kuro screamed. His his body moved forward without requiring a thought. He dealt the mortal blow like that, as if he were training with the straw mannequins his father had provided him with for so long. With devastating efficiency, his attack sank into the miserable demon's flesh.
They all fell to the ground – the blades, the bodies, his knees. Kuro's hands, still unguided, landed on Wolf's face, tracing the paths the flames of Shura were dying across.
"I always knew," he sobbed, watching the red hue of Wolf's eyes go back to its natural darkness. "I knew you would end it for yourself."
Wolf's right arm, weakened, rose slowly, moving the young warrior's hair out of his face. His foggy gaze lit up in recognition.
"My lord... you have returned to me."
"I never left you," Kuro cried.
"It is... so like you."
The young man felt his throat knot with a thousand questions. All the words that had gently accumulated in his soul, year after year, over such a long wait. The things he had hoped to ask, to say, melted together and fell like ash on the solitary battlefield.
"My lord... you are bleeding..."
Just like that, with the force of a waterfall, they came rushing forward.
"Why did you leave me? Why did you let it happen? Wolf... please, tell me... there were so many things that I could have –"
"I did this to you... didn't I?"
Trembling fingers were reaching for Kuro's slashed clothing. Gently, the young man moved them away with his own.
"Yes," he replied, emptied of anything.
"I failed to protect you... but you... did not fail. You did... what you had to do..."
"No."
"Yes... my lord."
Wolf's hand, now heavier than lead, passed upon Kuro's lips, to stop him from replying. Beneath the demonic veil in his eyes, his gaze had a warmth the young man had never seen again, yet never stopped longing for.
A moment later, his charred eyelids fluttered closed, taking the last of the fire with themselves.
The first snow of Ashina began to fall, dusting the two solitary bodies in the battlefield like a shroud.
Kuro paid no mind to how the snow on their clothing did not melt, now that the heat of the curse had vanished. He did not care for the flakes caught in his loose hair, or to the cold streams they left behind. He could do nothing but sob, draped across Wolf's chest, until his tears left a dark patch on what was left of his clothes.
Then, when he believed he could breathe again, he returned to his feet.
Ashina, cold and cruel as it had ever been to him, watched over him and his preparation for the burial. As in a distant day of his past, clouds of bad weather swirled above his head.
Kuro observed them, and thought they resembled his curse. Heavenly, indifferent.
One afternoon in late winter, Akizaemon watched the ocean roar from the far end of his courtyard. Even as the season ended, the gales found the strength to tear the waves apart, in a pointless, inconsolable song.
He had felt his mood attuned to the weather more than he cared to admit. Yet, he kept watching over that grey expanse, trying to find meaning in the movement of the sea.
He was growing older by the day, he mused, and the darkness of the storms did not help. In their changing behavior, the old samurai believed to see ghosts of his past. The tangible presence of his memories often made him lose sight of what was and was not real.
When he saw a beloved figure walk towards him, carrying his family armor and two large swords, Akizaemon thought he was hallucinating. But the thunder that accompanied it sounded like laughter – nothing but a whim of nature, come to awaken his mind from its reverie.
It became real enough when the figure started running, and rushed back to him for a long overdue embrace.
"Ryuunosuke," he said, his voice shaking.
He took time to look at his face. What he found in his eyes was a deep melancholy – mature, tangible and definitely there. Whether he could accompany him in that pain or not, only time could tell; but he felt joy nonetheless.
On his way back from who knows where, his youngest son looked more human than he ever had.
"I have returned, dear father," Kuro announced, finally rooting his adopted father's fanciful hopes back into the present. "There are so many things I wish to tell you... starting from my own name."
Akizaemon lowered his gaze, to look for Kusabimaru in its hilt. To his surprise, the sword wasn't there. Instead, he noticed a deep cut in his son's clothes, and a scar running across his chest. What that wound could mean, or what it could have cost, was a mystery to him. However, in the midst of his concern, he knew one thing. It was real.
He pulled him into an embrace again.
"There will be time," he said. "Welcome home."
Kusabimaru is the name of Wolf's sword, and it means "the blade of bonds/ties". It symbolizes the ties to something important or precious, to be defended. I thought there wouldn't be a better way of naming this story after the symbol of its plot - the tie Kuro can't let go of, until he is strong enough to return and lay it to rest.