KATANAGATARI 2
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On this Sword Hunt for the Mutant Blades, never staying too long in one place became a fact of life. By noon the day after the duel at the Basket, Togame and Shichika had boarded a schooner arranged for them by Kanara Azekura. They practically had the whole ship to themselves. Barring inclement weather, they were scheduled to make to Owari in three days─
That said, Togame had not heard as much from Azekura. After Shichika beat the champion of the Basket, he did not appear again before her.
The concussion1 was mild.
Light enough he would recover after merely a night’s rest─not to say a visit to the famous hot springs. And yet he would not show his face. Togame took this as a sign that he was fine with never seeing her again.
Zokuto the Armor.
On the evening of the duel, the katana had been brought to her in pieces─carried by two of Azekura’s men, two of the Armored Pirates. Since Togame was heading to Owari Castle, she debated packing it aboard their vessel, but she opted for standard procedure, which meant boxing the sword and shipping it ahead of them.
“Miss Togame.”
The two men who had brought the Armor to the inn were by the gangplank on the morrow, there to witness Togame and Shichika set sail from Dakuon Harbor.
“Captain told us you remind him of his little sister, the one he lost so many years ago. If she were still alive, you and her would be about the same age.”
When she heard this, Togame nodded, Huh. Whatever feeling was behind the nod was inaccessible to Shichika.
As usual, he had to wonder: What was going to happen to Dakuon Harbor, and the town built up around it, and the Armored Pirates?
What had happened to Gekoku Castle?
What happened to Triad Shrine in Izumo?
While his duel on Ganryu Island had left nothing unresolved, this last fight had left Dakuon with a real mess to clean up. These people were outlaws, and the Basket was effectively a gambling racket. Unlike Meisai Tsuruga, they would be receiving no aid from the bakufu.
What was going to happen to the Armored Pirates, bereft of their namesake Zokuto the Armor─and Kanara Azekura, who had spent so many years inside of it?
“Whatever will be, will be,” Togame said to Shichika, as she stepped onto the deck─and gazed upon the open sea. “I mean…this time, I don’t think anything will change. Like I said, they’re sure to lose prestige, and lose their grip over the town, but in the same way that you’re plenty strong without the Kyotoryu, Kanara Azekura is plenty strong without Zokuto the Armor. The Armored Pirates have sunk their roots in deep, and they’re not about to shrivel up and die─far from it. Things were getting out of control, but now they’ve settled down, and they can find stability.”
“Huh, is that how it goes?”
“After so long hiding himself away inside the Armor, it’s going to take a lot of courage for him to finally face the world.”
“I wish we could’ve seen him,” Shichika confessed. “If we stuck around town a couple more days, we’d have found him, like it or not. I was so curious. What I’d give to meet a guy who’s over seven feet tall.”
“I’m not so cruel to dump a guy only to get his hopes up. Once you’ve broken a man’s heart, the only decent thing to do is hurry up and walk away.”
“You’re the one who said to go easy on him. I was worried that even if I won, you’d wait until we got the Armor and then ask him to replace me.”
“Is that the sort of devious woman you take me for? You disappoint me. I can trust a man who works for love, but alas, I can’t keep taking them on.”
“No?”
“Azekura saw you as a nuisance, but he was just as easily the same to you. We’re in the middle of the Sword Hunt, and I have no patience for a petty rivalry.2 Hey, I meant to ask you…” the Schemer said, turning to face Shichika. “Did you like fighting people without killing them?”
“Oh…good question. I still don’t think it made much sense to hold back against Zokuto the Armor… It sort of felt fake,3 like it wasn’t a real battle.”
After a pause, Togame said, “I see.”
She had ordered Shichika to go easy on Azekura to ensure their safety following the battle, but this had been a pretext, her secret way of justifying the experiment.
Shichika Yasuri went for the kill the second he laid eyes on his opponent. She was testing4 him. He was not unable to control himself. And he knew all too well what it meant to cut a person down. To take a human life.
The only thing he lacked was an agenda.
Togame had an interest in ensuring that he learn, as soon as possible, what it was like to fight people without killing them. So far as Shichika was concerned, the results were less than satisfactory5─but regardless of the outcome, she was quite lucky to have found a fitting pretext.
“Anyway─there’s more to discuss,” Togame changed the subject, to make sure Shichika did not divine her scheme. “We were unlucky…to run into Hohoh Maniwa.”
“Huh? I thought that turned out pretty good. Thanks to him, I got to take on Azekura without working my way through three of the other pirates─plus, he told us where to find a few more swords. That deal you guys made sounded pretty good to me, even if we don’t know how much we can trust him.”
“Yeah, well, all that aside, Hohoh was the Maniwac I was most hoping to avoid. One thing’s for sure, running into him was no coincidence. I’m certain he came all the way to Satsuma just to strike that deal with us. He wasn’t here for Zokuto the Armor… And unlike Shirasagi and Kuizame, he knew exactly where to find us. I guess as long as the Maniwa are off on their own Sword Hunt, we were destined to collide with Hohoh sooner or later… What a killjoy. And another thing.”
Another thing.
Something was rotten at Owari Castle.
That woman was making moves...
If this was true…if this was not another ninja trick, and it may well be, coming from Hohoh─she was in no position to say things like, I can finally stop scrambling, even if they had reclaimed the Leveler and the Whisper.
“Another thing? Like how you realized ‘Cheerio’ was the wrong word?”
“CHEERIO!”
Shichika was only teasing, but Togame barraged him with punches.
She had permanently tagged the error as intentional.
The epitome of stubbornness.
What a pitiful personality.
“About that… How is it that you knew that ‘Chesuto’ was correct?”
“I dunno, just heard it from my dad. You said it with such confidence I started thinking maybe I remembered wrong…”
“I see… Anything else you’re hiding? Stuff I’m getting wrong without you telling me.”
“Umm, couple of things.”
“Oh? Sometimes I could just… Alright, out with it. Everything.”
A dangerous6 request to someone genuine as Shichika.
His older sister, Nanami Yasuri, had told him to keep a few things to himself, but he let them slip7 right then and there. These weren’t the kind of things you blurted out in response to a prompt like Alright, out with it.
Dangerous indeed.
“I killed the Sixth Master of the Kyotoryu─my dad, with my own hands.”
“…Huh?”
“And your dad, Mastermind of the Rebellion, Kaoyaku of Oshu─Takahito Hida, the one my dad killed. I know you’re actually his daughter.”
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Jilted by Togame, Azekura tried a little vengeance.
They should have seen it coming, but in the end, the ship arranged by Azekura never made it to Owari. It sailed around the Sea of Japan for a fortnight, bound for the Absolute Tundra of Ezo.
There Shichika Yasuri, whose defensive prowess was not to be outdone by the unparalleled armor class of Zokuto the Armor, would come to face Soto the Twin─and to suffer his first wound ever since they set off on the Sword Hunt.
Zokuto the Armor: Check
End of Book Five
To Be Continued
1 脳震盪 NŌSHINTŌ “brain shaken and melted”
2 諍い ISAKAI quarrel
3 窮屈 KYŪKUTSU cramped
4 試行錯誤 SHIKŌ SAKUGO trial and error
5 芳しい KANBASHII “rosy”; fragrant
6 軽率 KEISOTSU imprudent
7 口止めする 口走る KUCHIDOME SURU, KUCHIBASHIRU “stop someone’s mouth” / “run one’s mouth”