Hello readers,
Between my professional efforts to fight this small but mighty enemy threatening humanity's safety, I pour what little energy left of me into weaving this tale. Never have I written as much as I have now! Isn't it ironic I am now closer to completing this tale during a raging pandemic than I was in the lazy, complacent past?
Writing offers me solace and comfort in the midst of death and difficulties. May my quiet, humble musings bring you romance, relief, but most of all a smile to your face.
Thank you everyone for your support and words. Leave me comments- I love reading them! 3
Be kind, be human.
We will see the light at the end of this dark difficult tunnel.
xoxo,
Gravism
!READERS DISCRETION ADVISED!
This chapter contains violent, dark, adult themes.
The duality of fantasy and reality is a difficult task to represent
in this chapter but after much editing and revision, I am satisfied with my results.
Understand this is my story.
My art I share with you, warm strangers of the world from all walks of life whom have come to read.
I welcome you and ask not for permission, but for respect.
Warnings aside, without further ado here is
...
CHAPTER 23: FEAR
...
Mitsunari bolts up from the ground. "She is where?!"
"Ah, like I said, Mitsunari-sama," Shima explains, scratching back of his head, "I requested she leave with me but-"
The general clenches Shima's collar, dragging the youth to him. "The Red Light District. Why. Is. She. There."
Not a question- a demand.
The younger man meets the cold steel in his superior's eyes. "I- I don't know, General," he stutters, gaze falling to the ground.
Mitsunari unhands his shaken subordinate and with a stifled curse, sprints towards town.
She screams throughout the halls.
She digs her heels into wood floors.
She wrestles with the iron grip on her wrist.
Everyone within the inn must have heard the cacophony! But not a soul intervenes. It simply could not be true! Ran shakes her head. Her disbelief matched only by her stark horror of the dark room she is tossed in.
The heavyset man slurs out an introduction she will never remember as she continues to retreat further in the chamber.
"You are beautiful," he breathes, coating the air with sake and opium as dying sunlight from a window claw at his embroidered robes.
"Please let me go," comes her choked reply, a cold sweat sliding down her back as she rights herself.
"I am a businessman, h-here's my offer," he drawls, snatching her wrist. "Spend a night with me -hic- and I will grant you a life of comfort in my care. It…it is a rare opportunity amongst women of your…misfortune."
"Let me go," she repeats with wide frantic eyes, consumed by fear to realize his words.
"H-how about it," he hiccups, unfazed by her writhing, "not many have the honor of my –hic- generosity."
She swallows her fear, meeting his inebriated gaze with misted eyes. "I refuse your generosity! Unhand me!"
A dark chuckle rumbles in his chest, hand reaching for her face. "Ah, then it's settled."
Ran clamps down on his hand and with a garbled slew of expletives, he releases her.
"You dare bite me?"
She whirls around, wind and tears in her eyes, fleeing for the window.
She hears a name thundering across the room, only to realize it resonates from her own lungs, higher and louder than the malevolent man's pounding clumsy steps.
The young woman sprints to the window, lobbing one leg over the frame. A name she will remember into the next life, roaring, tearing throughout the thin, partitioned walls and into the streets.
"Come here!" The older man growls, ripping her from the window with a paltry swing of his arm.
She screams a name one last time and then succumbs to the sharp, stinging darkness.
Lighting could not match the swiftness of his sprint.
Thunder could not compare to the crackling electricity from his core.
The ubiquitous red lanterns shudder at his arrival to the pleasure district; it's residents, mostly men and some painted ladies, parting way upon his entrance.
Shima Sakon is short of breath, having just arrived at the entrance. He knows of only one other instance in which Mitsunari used his ki to traverse great distances in a short time.
He watches his General seize a bystander by the collar with the eyes of a wild wolf, demanding answers to a burning inquiry.
This speed. This desperation. The young warrior has only seen this on the day Lord Hideyoshi fell in battle. He'd never thought there would be another. He scratches his chin, there is a word to describe it….
Residents gasp as Mitsunari tosses the man away, none of them notice crystal beads threading down the General's temples. Shima Sakon snaps his finger and it dawns on him how to describe this emotion.
Fear.
There is no other word so perfect.
The young man could see the vice grip it had on his General when a scream erupts from a nearby inn.
"Mitsunari!"
Her voice sends a sharp bolt down the General's spine as his head snaps up.
Her small frame is barely out the window as screams erupt from below.
"Kami!"
"What is she doing?!"
"She's going to fall!"
All eyes are on her, and only Shima Sakon catches the General whispering her name.
Her frantic gaze steers into the horizon as she belts out Mitsunari's name once more before being pulled indoors. So close, yet so far.
"This is bad," the young man mutters under his breath as a thunderous roar erupts from Mitsunari.
Shima Sakon could barely keep up with the purple blur that was his superior, zipping through the establishment's labyrinthine corridors and winding stairs.
He knew of the Princess' clandestine edict that released his furious General's obligation to her and her clan, but only a fool would believe a royal order, or even divine order, could sever their ties. Kami, even the stable boys and cooks were aware that neither wind, water nor fire could cut the red string that bound them together, but it seems only their General remained oblivious.
With a deft swing of his arm, Mitsunari shatters half a banister before scaling the stairs, roaring the woman's name. Cold beads race down his temples.
Shoji doors, smashed clean off hinges, tumble across cold tatami mats. Mitsunari grips the hilt of his weapon and storms inside.
"Omae wa –hic- dare ka," comes the man's slurred demand.
Silver rays slice through clouds, casting truth on silhouettes wrapped in the stench of sake and opium.
"Who….are you?" The obese man repeats.
Shima Sakon fought in many wars, and despite his young age is an indifferent witness to many atrocities wrought upon men by conflict of their own machinations. However, he could not explain the sting of regret coiling in his core at the sight Ran unconscious, in the hands of this scoundrel.
"HOW. DARE. YOU." Mitsunari growls. A traveling cloud steals the moon's remaining silver, but the violet electricity crackling from his form illuminates the entire chamber.
The corpulent man drops her exposed ankle, and before he could demand again who they are, Shima Sakon hears two things.
First, the abandoned clank of Mitsunari's weapon on the hard tatami ground -a sound Sakon thought he'd only hear if his General were to die in battle. What samurai didn't know that dropping one's sword is a surrender to eternal death?
Second, the collision of a drunken man's corpulent body through multiple walls as Mitsunari stood with a dripping crimson fist amidst swirls of dust.
A gurgled cry erupts from the man, but it might as well ring empty to Mitsunari's deaf ears.
" ." Again the ominous growl, this time with bloody eyes Shima Sakon had not seen since the Battle of Sekigahara.
The man rolls onto his side as Mitsunari stomps over to the next room where his target lays.
This violent purple aura…
"You are..." the man's chokes out, blood trailing on corners of his lips, with the stuporous veil of alcohol lifted, "the Minister of Misfortune!"
...is murderous.
"Supreme Commander of the Western Army!"
The false bravado of sake drying off, followed by the dawning of fatal fear.
"Ishida Mitsunari-sama!"
His eyes wild, skin pale and robes drenched in sweat as he flounders to prostrate before the incoming samurai.
"My Lord, please have mercy! I did not know that woman-!" The older man throws himself onto the ground but is yanked clean off his feet.
"Ho… so you've heard of me…" the younger man growls, raising the man single-handedly by the collar of his robes into the air. "Then you must know the outcome of those who cross me!"
With a thunderous roar, Mitsunair hurls him across the chambers, smashing through another partition.
A scream erupts from the couple next door as they scramble to get their clothes and flee.
Shima Sakon can only look on as Mitsunari stalks over to the crumbled mass that is half man and half debris against the next room's far wall. A gossamer of yellow robes sparks a harrowing reminder while Shima looks on. Could he be…
There's a gurgled cough as a dangerous amount of red splatters on beige mats. Not fatal, but enough to be critical.
Mitsunari steps over the degenerate pile of a man. He seizes his collar, crimson orbs so red they leave a bilateral violaceous trail. His voice like immolating flames, and knuckles white with rage.
"You know of my name, and yet…."
BAM!
A blood-curling scream erupts from Ran's assailant.
"YOU."
BAM!
A cry for mercy suddenly squelched by another swing of Mitsunari's arm.
"DARE."
BAM!
A gurgle runs through red rivers.
"TOUCH."
BAM!
Silence.
"WHAT'S."
BAM!
"MINE!"
"Mitsunari-sama please stop!" Sakon's plea from across the chambers. "He is the town Magistrate! Any further and he will die!"
"THIS MISCREANT DESERVES NO LESS!" The Minister of Misfortune snarls back.
"Ran-dono, would not want this." The youth's usual blithe voice, replaced with a stern solemn tone.
Mitsunari's arm freezes mid-swing before dropping to his side. The young general stands, a towering figure of a man with crimson-painted fists.
His saunter is slow, deliberate and by the time he reaches Sakon, the crackling violent thunder dissipates to an almost inaudible buzz.
"Take him to Miyamoto" comes his command. "Execution will be the least of his concerns."
He regards the unconscious woman in Sakon's arms before kneeling to take her from his charge.
Shima Sakon nods silently. He makes quick work slinging the bloody man over his shoulder. There will be a punishment worse than death for the magistrate's crime. Perhaps under Lord Gamo's regime, one frequently turns a blind eye to such offenses, but after Lord Miyamoto's coup a new order will emerge from the ashes of the old empire. This future will not tolerate injustice against the weak.
The man in his arms certainly believed he had more than one life to live for there was a time not too long ago when Mitsunari would have slaughtered hundreds if not thousands for far less.
The young warrior spares a glance at his General and the unconscious woman.
A good woman can change a man, but you, Ran-dono, can change a demon.
A ghost of a smile graces his face as he flickers out the chamber with his charge.
Mitsunari considers the woman in his arms, much to his relief there were no overt injuries. Apparently, his subordinate had enough common sense to wrap her in an overcoat, but it could not conceal the sight of her unruly hair and torn kimono helm that makes his insides twist.
He sits her up, calls her name without avail and brushes away part of her dark hair. Much to his dismay a large bruise reveals itself on her temple, and it's all too clear to the Minister of Misfortune why she remains unconscious.
A solemn whisper in her ear that they are leaving, and he is out the brothel with her in his arms.
Unabashed stares of bystanders.
Mitsunari? THE Ishida Mitsunari who assisted in Lord Miyamoto's coup?
Gossip.
Who is that woman in his arms?
Everyone clamors to see.
What did he do to that woman?
Whispers within an earshot.
Where are they going?
He couldn't be bothered to spare the detritus of society any words, but occasional glares with stormy steel eyes was enough to silence the lot of them.
A curt whistle and his steed arrives, cutting through the throngs of men with painted ladies. Mitsunari secures Ran on board and sets a galloping speed to depart.
Far away from the accursed dark, red light district.
Out into the sun.
A place where a Southern flower belongs.