KATANAGATARI 1
“Me?”
“If I had lost─would you have given her the Leveler and the Razor, like we agreed?”
“Mumble mumble.”2
“Excuse me?!”
“I-I would have had to wait to see if─no, I was certain you would never lose!”
“…You really put your neck on the line, too─what’s the word? Fearless? Fearsome?3 Like that thing with the first piece.”
“What about it?”
“Yeah…we’ll talk about that later─I’m still trying to sort things out…but let’s just say I felt for myself what makes these Kiki Shikizaki swords different from normal swords─totally apart from the venom or the medicine or whatever. What I really wanna know is, what does that mean?”
“Don’t think too hard, Shichika. It didn’t exactly help you out this time, did it? And of course, I wound up missing your Fatal Orchid, yet again. How am I supposed to write my report? Such a headache.”
“First Komori Maniwa, then Ginkaku Uneri, and now Meisai Tsuruga…are you just not meant to watch me in action?”
“M-Mrg…”
Togame was unable to respond.
In light of the facts, he certainly had a point. In order to write her report, and to supervise Shichika, her katana─she needed to come up with a decent plan.
“Guess it’s time for us to say goodbye to these stairs,” Shichika noted. “Makes me kinda sorry to be leaving.”
Vaguely aware of Togame’s trouble4 with the steps, he had kept apace with her, maintaining a steady footing. They were halfway down the mountain, having descended a great deal─around five hundred steps.
“You’re sorry about the staircase, but not the shrine? You weirdo.”
“No, it just makes me kind of sad to know I’ll never carry you like that again. No matter where this Sword Hunt takes us, I’ll probably never have a chance to hold you in my arms─”
“Ch-Cheerio!”
Hoping to teach him not to be so daft with women, Togame sent her fist flying. The fact that they were halfway up a mountainside, and on cruelly steep stairs, completely slipped her mind. They were descending them, too.
As expected, she lost her footing.
“Ah!”
“Whoop─”
Shichika reached out to catch Togame─and caught her wrist midair, but in the process leaned perilously from the staircase. She was so sprightly that she weighed nothing compared to him, but when she tugged at his outstretched limb like that, he had no hope of staying balanced.
“─ps, oops, oops, uh oh.”
“Wh─ah!”
Thus, hopelessly entangled, they tumbled down the remaining five hundred or so steps, rolling faster and faster.
■ ■
They had yet to realize, as they fell.
That they would not be returning to Owari without further ado.
That on the road ahead, the Strongest Swordsman in Japan, the Fallen Swordsman who had willingly fallen from his seat as the Strongest, who had tamed Hakuto the Whisper, the most unwieldy masterpiece among Kiki Shikizaki’s Twelve Possessed─for whom nomenclature like Sword Master and Sword Saint5 were intended─that none other than Hakuhei Sabi awaited his turn with them.
Sento the Legion: Check
End of Book Three
To Be Continued
1 華やか HANAYAKA showy echoes 花 HANA flower
2 ごにょごにょ GONYO GONYO onomatopoeia for mumbling
3 大胆…不敵 DAITAN…FUTEKI usually used together as 大胆不敵 audacious
4 懊悩 ŌNŌ anguish
5 剣豪剣聖 KENGŌ KENSEI terms applied to the best of them, e.g. Musashi Miyamoto