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Under the Sky: A Noble Flame

Chapter 3

A sharp pain in her head awakened her first. Sayuri sat up cautiously, her muddled thoughts still trying to catch up to the events occurring around her. She blinked a few times to try to clear her vision.

Smoke. It's smoke...

Her nostrils suddenly burned, as did the back of her throat. She coughed violently. The girl brought her hands up to her ears to stifle the ringing there. All around her, she saw pieces of shattered marble and splintered wood. The grey smoke shifted and out of its tendrils, a short, lithe shape of a man appeared. He wore a dark blue dogi and a mask fashioned into the likeness of a red Oni*. Some of the smoke finally cleared, making way for orange flames. Like this, in the hellish mixture of white moonlight and radiant blaze, the figure looked like a demon. The eyes in the mask reflected nothing, resembling a hollow vacuum. She could easily believe that no soul resided behind that porcelain shell. Step by step, the monster came closer to her, unsheathing a kodachi from his belt. The silver steel glinted dangerously, singing as though crying out for blood; she could have sworn that she saw her death in that brief flash.

Get away from me.

Although she felt her lips move, she couldn't hear herself speak. The explosion had completely deafened her. Trapped in a viscous and heavy silence, she wanted to scream. He stepped closer, bending his knees in preparation for a strike. Adrenaline kicked in. She scrambled to her knees and rolled at the exact moment that he leaped forward. His blade missed her, just barely. She rolled a few more times until she lost sight of him. An unfamiliar stillness settled over her mind. She wasn't completely helpless. The monks had trained her in hand to hand combat and even some kendo over the past years. If only she could find some sort of weapon...

Her heart jumped when she saw another flash in front of her. The demon jumped out from obscurity, his blade slicing through incorporeal fog. Again, he advanced; again, she barely dodged another death blow. This time, however, she stopped in mid roll and kicked out with her right leg. The sharp movement caught the demon behind the knees and he careened sideways. Sayuri didn't waste a second. Although she couldn't hear it, she knew that she let out a battle cry as she threw her full weight on the creature's abdomen. Hopefully, the blow would wind him, giving her the chance to -

Yes!

With a silent cry of triumph, she wrested the kodachi from his fingers. The muscles in her legs screamed in protest as she pushed off the ground and jumped backwards. The smoke thinned as she moved into another portion of the room. Her initial relief fractured when she finally grasped the situation. The attackers had used explosives to tear through the nearly impenetrable walls of the temple. The heavy layers of marble, wood, and stone were now scattered in an enormous area. Apparently, the blast also felled some of the surrounding trees. She could scarcely believe that such destruction was caused in mere seconds. The pyre that slowly consumed the grass, trees, walls, and furniture around her truly terrified her. Sayuri's eyes widened as pure, raw, horror petrified her. Memories rose from their dark prison in her subconscious mind. Black pitch closed in around her, but so frozen in terror was she that she couldn't even cough.

"Princess! Move away! Run! Run!" The sharp, commanding, voice pierced through her trance. She turned her head towards it to see the demon from before charging at her like a raging bull, an elongated chunk of splintered wood held above him like a sword. Move! She had to move! He would hit her if she didn't! At that speed, the club would crack open her skull. But, no matter how hard she tried to do so, her legs would not obey. As though hypnotized, she pivoted around to look at the flames again, lost in her own world of fear and confusion. Her assailant, the imminent danger, and the person who desperately begged her to move away were all tuned out.

Something rammed into her side. The world tilted until up became down. She dimly realized that something had pushed her to the ground. The impact jarred her head, causing her to bite the inside of her mouth. The taste of blood and sharp pain in her cheek brought her back to her senses. She blinked, Goemon's face coming into focus above her. Behind him, less than a few paces away, stood Kotaro. His kodachi clashed with her attacker's club. Both of them had just saved her from certain death. Goemon cursed darkly under his breath. Six more men emerged from the smoke like evil specters, swords and knives held at the ready. In unison, they hissed.

"Fuma-san!" she called out, terrified that he faced such overwhelming odds. Goemon held her down as she struggled to get out from under him. She had to help! Somehow, she had to help him!

"What are you doing?" Goemon snarled.

"Help him! Help Fuma-san!" All six men jumped forward at once. Their hisses turned into roars. Vaguely, Sayuri could make out strange attachments on their hands - rusted, metal, claws. Putting everything she had into one last shove, she managed to pry Goemon's hands off of her shoulders for long enough to slip out from under his weight. Later, she wouldn't be able to recall picking up her stolen kodachi from the ground. She would only remember the desperate need she felt to save the man to whom she owed her life. No matter how skilled Kotaro was, he couldn't protect himself from all sides. The demon men knew this and attacked him in a circular formation. He slashed, ducked, and jumped over and under their blades with blinding speed, but it was not enough. Gritting her teeth, she charged at one of the men who aimed for his back, making sure to jam the sharpest part of her shoulder into his vulnerable side. With some satisfaction, she heard him grunt in pain. He stumbled into the path of another warrior and only had a second to scream before the masked man's sword sliced open his face.

She turned and barely blocked an attack from the side. Her arms trembled. This was a fully trained fighter. The power in his swings overshadowed her own several times over. Fortunately, she was quick on her feet and much smaller than he was. In a stroke of luck, she avoided a backwards swing and dropped under his outstretched arm. With a single, decisive, upwards stab, Sayuri embedded her kodachi into the man's sternum. Blood spewed from his mouth, some of it dripping onto her cheek. Her blade shuddered as it slid through flesh and bone; Sayuri felt bile rising up into her throat. He gurgled once then slid to the ground. The sword slipped from her numb fingers.

"Goemon!" Kotaro yelled hoarsely. "Take her and get out of here!"

"No! We won't leave you!" she shouted. Someone screamed from behind her. Twisting around, she saw Goemon take down two men with one swing of his crimson katana. Not wasting a beat, he grabbed her upper arm and started dragging her towards the surrounding forest. Refusing to abandon Kotaro to die, she tried to loosen his hold to no avail. "Wait! Ishikawa-san! Please! We can't just leave Fuma-san here!" When he looked at her, her eyes flew wide. His features were shadowed by an expression of rage. Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around her waist and tossed her up and over his shoulder.

"Be still!" he bit out when she tried to kick him.

"You're going to leave your friend behind?!" she screeched, outraged. "What about the monks? What about Kohei-san and the others in the temple? We can't just abandon them! They'll die!"

"I don't have time for this foolishness," Goemon snapped. He threw her to the ground and picked her up by the front of her haori. She tried to hit him, kick him, and slap him, but he just pinned her arms to her sides.

"Let me go! They'll die!" Everything happened so fast. One moment, she was looking at her burning home and Kotaro desperately fending off endless enemies, and the next everything went dark as she felt a sharp pressure on the back of her neck.

OOOO

For what seemed like the thousandth time in the past several hours, Goemon cursed. He flew through the trees as fast as his feet could carry him. Leaves and branches became a blur as he flew past. And still, he was too slow. The girl didn't weigh much, but even the small addition subtracted significantly from his speed. For the assassins that tailed him, it was enough to keep up. Normally, he would have easily lost them. But, now...

Stupid, foolish, naive, girl!

If she hadn't made such a fuss about leaving, he would have a good head start on these men by now. Despite everything, however, he didn't panic. He was confident that they would run out of stamina before he did. To exhaust his pursuers as much as possible, he doubled back the moment he lost sight of them. Turning in chaotic patterns, he led them in circles until - finally - nearly an hour later he couldn't hear them at all. Letting down his guard here would have been a mistake. Though the assassins had lost him, he needed to get as far away from the area as possible. Hopefully, the reckless girl on his back would stay asleep for several more hours. Pausing his sprint on a particularly sturdy tree limb, he withdrew a length of rope from one of the hidden compartments in his robes and tied her wrists together so that her arms rested firmly around his shoulders. Settling her body higher up on his back, he cut off another segment and wrapped it around them so that her torso was tied to his.

Not my preffered way of handling a woman, but at this point I don't have much of a choice.

He resumed his quick pace, more relaxed now that he knew she wasn't likely to accidentally slip off if one of his landings was too rough. His mind raced to come up with a plan of action. Going to Iga now would be suicide. If Nobunaga had sent his assassins to the temple, it meant that he knew more about the heir than he and Hanzo believed. All known roads would be watched. His thoughts flashed back to the battle. The girl's voice resounded in his memory.

You're going to leave your friend behind?!

Yes. He would. If it was for the mission, he would do anything that was required of him. He knew she didn't understand that. How could she ? She was not a ninja. She was not baptized in blood from a young age like they all were. From the first moment of training, they were taught that comrades were expendable in the face of the mission. Still...anger boiled in his gut.

Kotaro...you better not die, you bastard.

He tried to tell himself that Hanzo, Sasuke, and Saizo had been there as well; they would join Kotaro and fight with him. Believing that allowed him to move past his concern. First, he needed to make sure the girl wasn't injured. If she was, he would need water to clean her wounds. Intuition told Goemon to turn west. Fortunately, he possessed excellent visual memory. He passed through this area rarely, but he remembered it fairly well thanks to that gift. If his instinct was correct, then heading west would bring them to a river. They had no supplies - no food, water, or even bandages. As soon as the sun rose, he would take them to the nearest village. Going anywhere public was a risk right now, but he would have to take his chances.

"Where...are we?" The girl's whisper nearly made him jump. He hadn't expected her to regain consciousness for some time. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Honestly...this girl just kept surprising him at every turn.

"Safe," he replied. "For now."

"Fuma-san...is he alright?" Goemon's smile withered. So, they were back to that again. First, she refused to call him by his first name. Then, she didn't remember that he'd been there on the night of the fire with Kotaro. And finally, to add insult to injury, she chose the silver-haired ninja to be her guardian. As if all of that wasn't enough, she risked her safety to try and save him and completely ignored the man who had actually rescued her. The muscle in his jaw twitched. His pride couldn't take much more of his nonsense.

"He's fine. Are you injured?"

"I don't know." Her voice was faint; that worried him.

"Does anything pain you?"

"My head."

"We'll stop soon, and I'll take a look. For now, just be still."

"I killed that man..." she mumbled. Goemon felt her shudder. "May the Gods forgive me...I killed that man."

"You did what you had to do."

"That doesn't justify it..."

"So, you would have preferred it if he killed you instead?" Silence. "Answer me." He rolled his eyes when he heard her sniffle. "Were you expecting to walk away from all this without blood on your hands, little bird?" No reply. "I don't know how you thought this situation would play out, but clearly you failed to understand exactly what you were signing up for."

"No one said anything about killing..."

"No one made you take that man's life," he countered flatly. She went utterly still. "You made that choice yourself. You could have run. You could have hidden. You could have stayed with me instead of running headlong into the fray."

"Gods...please, please forgive me..." With this said, her shoulders shook with tearful sobs. "What have I done?" Her tears left trails of cool moisture on the nape of his neck. Crying women weren't his specialty. In his experience, women rarely ever cried around him. Then again, he never stayed with one long enough to experience the full range of female emotions. "I'm a murderer..."

"You probably saved Kotaro's life, little bird. Surely that's some consolation," he offered hesitantly. "Yes, you made the choice to kill. But, don't forget that your intention was to save a life. You didn't kill for pleasure. You did so because you had to." He wondered if she heard him at all.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." Not really sure why she was apologizing, Goemon resolved to remain silent and allow her to let out her frustration. They had a long way to go yet. Surely by then she would be calm enough to listen to reason.

OOOOO

Appendix:

Oni - are a kind of yokai from Japanese folklore, variously translated as demons, devils, ogres, or trolls.