Cale's head throbbed from the lingering shock of battle. A high-pitched ringing had remained at the forefront of his thoughts ever since enduring Hardrock's bo strike point-blank.
A shameful retreat was insulting enough, but upon materializing within the walls of his master's castle, an offensive odor cut through the copper tinge that stained his nostrils and teeth. Perfume, burning oil, and the unmistakable lilt of a woman's voice dancing upon the aroma that now infiltrated his quarters.
The Koji woman was more trouble than his master had wagered, thought the beastly warlord. Surely they didn't need the insights of a weak and pliant mortal to overcome the five armors. He was certain of this even as his bones ached and his muscles burned from their hard-earned lesson in failure. Never could Cale admit to his own shortcomings, not as long as the threat of inferiority to mere female words hung over his head like an executioner's blade. Surely his master wouldn't consider this mortal woman's inane mewling more valuable than the might of his four generals... Three generals, if he were thinking candidly, for he knew in his soul that Anubis' loyalty waivered with the weakness that struck at the heart of every foolish man: Sentiment.
The scent of a traditional evening performance mingling with his hateful thoughts only stirred Cale's bloodlust deeper, redder, and closer to the edge. Dismissing his armor revealed the extent of his injuries, blood pooling between the joints of the lesser uniform plating. He keened from the sting of the air, but the press of metal was even worse. He willed it all away, until only the simple tattered kimono of his past self remained, reminding him of the lowly beggar's life he had escaped with the help of Master Talpa.
Sleeping with wild dogs and slitting throats along the Tosa highway was a far cry from his cohorts' glorious warrior origins, and one that he couldn't help but resent. They had never endured the cold of winter with naught but straw sandals and still-bloody pelts. They'd never suffered the dizzying hunger of the highwayman without a quarry, forced to strip pine bark before the sika herds had their fill. And he'd never experienced the joy of a beautiful woman presenting herself in delicate performance, floating upon the crispness of fresh tatami as the lamps cast her profiled shadow to and fro against the gold leaf and ink of the decorated walls.
This was the sight presented before him as his hateful thoughts willed him into the mortal woman's quarters. Dark intent in his sleeping mind had brought him there, but the gentle candle glow and haunting words of sleeping eternity and light in the darkness gave him pause. This was entertainment for those he'd only stolen things from – wealth, and life. The Koji woman's display of grace and poetry transfixed him briefly, cooling Cale's murderous thoughts until her supple white neckline craned softly away from Anubis' lips.
Incensed, red filled his vision once more. Yet again Anubis was well ahead of him. Always given undeserved priority, always accepting undeserved and misdirected praise. Now even with this newly acquired prize that sought to throw the five Ronin into disarray and turn their source of unity against them, Anubis stepped ahead and drank his fill with the audacious entitlement Cale had come to expect, but not in this manner.
Not with such a rare feast.
The traitorous skate.
Cale's grip closed around his general's wrist, even as Anubis's hand sought to brush luridly along the mortal woman's paper-white fingers. He jerked Anubis from his walled garden, throwing him through the shoji wall and toppling one of the lamps. As fire streaked across part of the tatami floor, the hard blue shadows now cast a dire warning across Cale's face as he decried Anubis's shameful indulgence.
"The enemy knocks at your master's home as you consort with their concubine in secret!? Shameless!" Cale sprang upon the unsuspecting warlord with the savagery of his former life's desperation, "COWARD!"
Anubis' senses were only partially restored by the physical jarring. Some part of him remained with the now motionless Mia Koji, whose poetry he had begun to interrupt with audacious physical abandon. The scent of her skin left his vision unfocused as he suddenly found himself forced to defend against an ambush. Cale's thumbs pressed against the pounding vessels in his neck – A tried and true technique for ruffians and low-life's unable to afford armor, and who had never targeted those who could.
In seconds Anubis reversed their fortunes and had him by the neck, the L-bow of his arm cutting off Cale's own circulation with such force that even a sturdy tare would have been of little assurance.
Mia's bewitched gaze bore witness to the unseemly display without emotion. Somewhere in her thoughts, she continued the endless search for an exit to the maze haunted by the nether spirits that held her mind captive. Only the life-long studies of poetry and music of the Sengokujidai handed down by her Grandfather passed the locked gates of her conscious thoughts and deeds - precisely as Lord Badamon had intended.
As black began to fill Cale's vision, he drew his obi-fold short blade in angry desperation, and before it could find the gap in Anubis' ribs, a booming voice split the air like lightning in a midnight storm.
"ENOUGH!"
The force of the command snuffed the flames from the oil-soaked floor and every other light in the room. Both men found themselves fear-struck into sobriety. One recovering from lustful thoughts of the flesh, the other from blood, they turned in simultaneous submission to their master, both ready for Talpa's judgement to smite the other for their misdeeds.
The spirit of Talpa shimmered with the wafting smoke of freshly snuffed fire. His empty gaze seeped into Cale and Anubis, a horrible sensation that seemed to freeze the very air within their breasts. There was a low sound as gathering thunder in the distance as Talpa's voice materialized through the sheer will of his spirit. The despair of millions, hewn into a single evil entity.
"You are fortunate, my dear Anubis," drawled the quiet force of Talpa's will. Anubis could feel his entire body weighed down by the mere attention of his master's gaze.
"Your knowledge will now be put to use for the glory of my empire. Go forth, and show these foolish children the power of the Dynasty's lovely acquisition… and what strategies she has bestowed upon you."
Anubis' breath caught momentarily. His body stiffened, and his eyes stared in shocked shame at the shadowed floor beneath his master. He had been observed through the entire audacious act, unprofessionally and deliberately losing himself to the woman's enticing voice and movements. And now as he was dismissed to battle the enemy at the gates, the imperceptible smile of his cohort crawled over his senses. Anubis didn't need to look, he knew Cale's vindicated smirk by sound alone, and as he obeyed with a curt "At once, Master," he allowed the direction of his gaze to betray his heart.
There laid the woman he had once sought to murder, to torture, and yet briefly, whose cheek he had brushed with his own, and whose fingers he had intertwined within his trembling grip for a scarce moment.
The spoken riddle she performed had stirred his spirit to the core, dredging a deep memory from times past. A memory of daily scholarship and intense physical conditioning. A memory of the stories he gleefully dismissed in favor of another round of sickle strikes that splintered prisoner's bones. A poem whose study he ignored as his blows bruised peasant bodies for the crime of passing without proper haste before him. Memories of his cruelty, aptly noted and acquired by the one he now called "Master".
Indeed Anubis understood Mia Koji's riddle of the Ronin armor – He had been there when it had been composed centuries ago. Now he would have to use those unearthed memories in fine fashion. In quick fashion. For Cale's teeth strained against themselves in anticipation of Anubis' departure.
There lay the Ronin's woman in full traditional furisode, amber hair spilling over the burned tatami, unconscious before the three. Emperor Talpa's brief flash of anger was enough to sap her weakened spirit and strike her body as a crashing wave upon unsuspecting fishermen. As Anubis' body faded from the room in obedient execution of his duties, Cale's burning gaze was visible for just a moment. Anubis knew that in his absence, the girl would not survive Cale's ire.
His quick victory was required not only for the glory of his master, and satisfaction of his warrior's spirit, but for the survival of the woman who had stolen his heart.