BOOK TEN　SEITO THE GARLAND

■　■

Burning.

Burning. Burning.

Burning. Burning. Burning.

Burning─red hot.1

Burning─ablaze.

All was burning.

All would burn away.

Burning up─and burning out.

“■■■─listen to me.”

Afire.2

Aflame.3

As if possessed of a tenacious, individual will, the conflagration spread and multiplied, all encompassing─a ring of fire.

For us.

Protecting us from something out there.

“■■■”

In air so hot that it was difficult to breathe─

You spoke to me.

Calling my name─the name that I’ve forgotten.

“It looks as though I’ve failed─we’re in a bind. I see no way of turning things around.”

Sounding utterly resigned.

No.

Nay─you had always been resigned.

Not like I had any hope of understanding anything you said─but one thing was for sure.

You understood from the beginning.

Knew that your plan4 would end in failure.

Knew that your plot5 would end a failure.

Knew all along.

Knowing─well aware.

What it was you knew, though, I’ve forgotten─

But you were thoroughly resigned.

Starting off with no delusion of success─which is what made your deeds so wicked.

Never expecting to succeed, and banking on your failure─indeed.

Nothing to hide, nor anything to show.

There we were.

Engulfed in flame─hot air so suffocating we could nary see a foot ahead, just as you predicted.

As planned, from the beginning.

All you wanted was to know for certain that your efforts were in vain─to make sure, once more, and for good measure, that despite your every precaution, and having planned things so assiduously, you nevertheless failed.

Which explained─that smug6 look on your face.

A face announcing you had no regrets.

“So this is how I meet my ruin─hah. Pretty interesting turn of events, I must say…”

You have to admit.

Indeed.

Though knowing you would fail─you never knew exactly how.

How history would rewrite itself.

How history would expunge7 you.

Those things were beyond your control.

Not if, but how to fail.

That was all this struggle ever meant─all that the thousand-thousand8 war dead, friend and enemy alike, could ever mean to you.

“This history is all wrong.”

You.

Repeating those words I had heard before─only to forget.

“I’ve done my part to show just how wrong it is─but for the time being, my work is done. It sure could have been easier─don’t expect me to do that again. I’m not cut out for this line of work─I’m a homebody at heart, just trying to muddle through, between our family vacations. Don’t ask me how things came to this─but all the same.”

You told me.

“In the end, ■■■, I’ve said all I had to say, and that’s what counts.”

Had to say?

What are you saying?

You hadn’t told me anything─

You’d said nothing.

You were severed from me─

What was it?

What were you trying to explain?

“Damn─”

You cast your eyes beyond the flames.

And on your face─a smile.

You were laughing, like you were amazed.

“I’m going to burn to death regardless, even if they let me be, but it would seem there is one man left among them who believes in following formalities.9 It’s too bad. If I had my druthers, ■■■ would be the last person I spoke to─but alas. This thing called history is too cruel for words─ah, well.”

And then you turned to me.

“Hide in there─and don’t come out, no matter what. If history proceeds as I suspect─and if the lessons I have garnered from this failure prove a fact, then you, and only you, will make it out alive. The sole survivor of this gruesome chapter in our history.”

History will make a place for you.

At least for now.

Not like this─made any sense to me.

“If I cared more about the code of the samurai, ■■■─this would be when I put you out of your misery…but I cannot help myself from taking pity on you. Killing you is one thing I could never do, even if correcting this flawed history depends on it. We’re good as dead, but I can’t force myself to take you with me.”

That’s what you said.

Saying things that I’ve forgotten.

“How could I kill─my own daughter?”

You said that.

Then you stuffed me in a closet─and I was too small10 to fight back.

How did I react?

Did I cry?

Bawl my eyes out?

Huff and puff?

Howl?

I can’t remember.

All I remember─is that right after you shoved me in there, locking me away, a man appeared─piercing the ring of fire.

He was a swordsman.

Except he had no sword.

The Swordless Swordsman─

“Well, well, well, Mutsue. They send you here to kill me?”

You played dumb.

The Swordless Swordsman answered you─without so much as glancing toward me.

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■”

I’m not sure what he said.

I don’t remember.

Nor would I care to.

Because the Swordless Swordsman─

The Swordless Swordsman took your life.

And right before he did.

Somehow─you stood there.

Laughing.

“Hah hah hah!”

Laughing─just like that.

“Wow, this tops everything, Mutsue─to think that things would come to this. Me left with no choice but to die at your hand, and you with no choice but to kill me. I have no hope of combatting your swordplay, while you must have a thousand different ways that you could take my life─how can one human being have so much power over another?”

“■■■■■■■■■■■”

“Now, don’t misunderstand me─I’m not complaining, and I’m not giving in.11 It’s just too funny. I know I’m up against the wall, but I’m amused at how inconsequential12 this all feels─besides. This history is so unbelievably wrong, I have to laugh.”

You said.

That’s what you said.

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■”

“Afraid not, Mutsue. If anyone has had their hands tied up by history, it’s you─though I suppose that it’s not you, so much as your whole school, the Kyotoryu. Granted, you have every right to be an imbecile, but if at all possible, try to spare posterity from your idiocy─for starters, don’t force your son and daughter to carry the same weight.”

“■■■?”

“Did I confuse you? Oh well. Why even bother trying to get through to you? Hey, don’t take it personally. I don’t hate you or your kind. It really is a pity that the two of us had to wind up pitted against one another. If you had been my ally, perhaps history could have been corrected─though at this point, so be it. There’s no way around it.”

With that.

You took a seat.

Turning your back on the Swordless Swordsman─so that you faced me.

Wearing that usual audacious look of yours.

In your usual stance, ready to laugh off history, wrong as it was─you looked at me.

“■■■─■■■■!”

A katana flashed─aimed at your neck.

The nonexistent sword─of the Swordless Swordsman.

Raised high.

Gleaming─ready to take your acquiescent head.

“■■■!”

These were your last words.

“I need to leave you now─but one more thing! Even if nothing I’ve said got through to you, and even if you forget everything else about me─remember this!”

Except I did forget.

I can’t remember what he said─

“I ■■■■ you ■■■■■■■!”

This was supposed to be the most important part.

But I forgot it.

His words left me─along with the color of my hair.

■　■

As Togame the Schemer arrives in Mutsu, returning home a stranger.

Only three left of the Twelve Possessed, those masterworks of legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki─but as we near the end of our adventure, its bitter ends begin to come together!

Just three more episodes left in this Saga of Katanas!

Togame the Schemer! Princess Negative! The Maniwa!

Their three-way struggle is finally nearing its conclusion─at least, probably!

This flowery battle, this florid family feud!

Slicing the corpse of this period piece to pieces─say what?!

Sword Tale, Book Ten ♪

1 赤々と AKA AKA TO “red ditto-ly”

2 火が HI GA the fire

3 炎が HONŌ GA the flames (fire written twice)

4 企て KUWADATE strategy

5 企み TAKURAMI ploy

6 納得したような NATTOKU SHITA YŌNA satisfied-seeming

7 粛清 SHUKUSEI clear (from the record) e.g. 大粛清 DAISHUKUSEI Great Purge

8 幾千幾万 IKUSEN IKUMAN how many thousand, how many tens of thousands

9 律儀 RICHIGI upright (citizen); (doing things) by the book

10 幼かった OSANA KATTA was young, undeveloped

11 嘆いて[…]投げ出して NAGEITE[…]NAGEDASHITE wail[…]throw (a match)

12 危機感を感じない KIKIKAN WO KANJINAI feeling no sense of danger

■　■

Only a month ago.

At the juncture of our story when Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu, and Shichika Yasuri, the Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu, were just about to take their leave from Shogi Village, the holy land of shogi players in Tendo, in Dewa, where they had journeyed in the hopes of capturing Oto the Cured, one of the Twelve Possessed, the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

Zetto the Leveler. Zanto the Razor. Sento the Legion. Hakuto the Whisper. Zokuto the Armor. Soto the Twin. Akuto the Eel. Bito the Sundial.

Standing apart from the owners of the other eight Possessed which they had captured, Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School and owner of Oto the Cured, proved an unlikely steward of a Mutant Blade.

Her nerves were like taut string.

Her sword was made of wood.

Wooden, yet nevertheless lethal.

She was the owner of Oto the Cured, the only Shikizaki blade that was without venom─that actually leached venom away, invested with the power to detoxify.

Which brings us to the day after our heroes prized Oto the Cured from Kiguchi─sole guardian of her school.

Shichika Yasuri visited the Heartland Dojo on his own.

Togame, who had her hands full packaging Oto the Cured for shipment and converting the nitty gritty details2 of their conquest into another one of her reports, remained at the inn where they were staying─or rather, she was so engrossed with her work that Shichika was at a loss for what to do and figured that he may as well walk over to the Heartland Dojo to kill time.

Packing up the sword was one thing, but writing the report would probably take her hours. Too long for him to sit there on his hands.

After all, now that Togame’s tale of the Sword Hunt had won her considerable praise within the bakufu, it made sense that she would pour her heart and soul into its composition─Shichika could see that.

But he was aware of something else.

Because her rival,3 Princess Negative─Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate and sworn enemy of Togame the Schemer, was among the many avid readers of her accounts of their adventure, Togame could not exactly write them with the innocent disclosure of a civil servant reporting back to her superiors.

She had to weave together fact and fiction.

Which is why─they took her lots of time to write.

Since nothing was more difficult for Shichika than the subtleties of politics, even being in the same room with her while she was working made it hard for him to breathe─so he excused himself and headed over to the Heartland Dojo, situated in the middle of Shogi Village.

He had spent ten days at this dojo as a follower.

To some extent, perhaps he wished he could have stayed there longer─a questionable sentiment, since he was the current master of his school, the Kyotoryu, but regardless.

“Hey.”

Shichika left his straw sandals by the door and stepped up into the dojo.

Like he owned the place.4

“Well, if it isn’t Master Shichika.”

Kiguchi greeted him, but only after she completed her set number of repetitions─it had taken her some time to even notice he was there.

Her powers of concentration were astounding.

As goes without saying, the wooden sword she held was not Oto the Cured─but there was nothing different about her disposition.

Mopping away her sweat with a tenugui, Kiguchi walked over to Shichika.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

Shichika was unsure of what to say.

He had no real reason for being there─he had simply been bored of sitting around the inn and needed to get out. He had wandered over to the dojo partly by force of habit.

Kiguchi helped Shichika along.

“If I’m not mistaken, the two of you are heading back to Owari tomorrow or the day after,” she said, setting the topic. “I was planning to see you off, but since you’re dropping by like this, Master Shichika, perhaps your plans have changed─”

“No, that’s still the plan─I was just in the neighborhood.”

As he spoke, Shichika reached for the wooden sword that Kiguchi was holding.

“Think I could try that for a sec?”

“Of course, by all means…”

Handing Shichika her sword, Kiguchi looked a little puzzled.

And why not?

She knew all about the Kyotoryu.

Knew about the Swordless Swordsman─and his school.

She knew that Shichika was known as the “Swordless Swordsman” for good reason─inept not only when it came to wooden swords, but every kind of sword imaginable, hewn from stone or forged from steel. Hearing him ask to try hers would be enough to puzzle anyone.

Unbothered by her reaction, Shichika went ahead and tested out the sword.

Needless to say─it wasn’t pretty.

To be blunt─it was disturbing.

Though Shichika had practiced with a wooden sword in his ten days as a follower of the Heartland School, he had hardly gotten used to it.

He could barely even hold the thing.

And that was with a wooden sword.

What would happen with a real sword─

Or one of the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki?

What would happen─if he held one of the Twelve Possessed?

“…Master Shichika?” said Kiguchi, sounding worried. “You look unwell─be careful not to overexert yourself.”

“Oh, no─don’t worry, it’s not like holding a sword is enough to make me queasy.” Or so he replied, promptly returning the wooden sword to Kiguchi. “It’s interesting, though, how fighting with you made me realize how weird it is to call the Kyotoryu a school of swordplay. Back on the island, I barely gave it any thought.”

Then it hit him.

Wow.

I’m here because of what Kiguchi told me yesterday─

Feeling bored sitting around the inn, wishing he could stay at the dojo a little longer, and wandering over here by force of habit─all of that was little more than an excuse.

You see.

What Kiguchi said to Shichika had gotten in his craw.

“Do you remember─what you told me yesterday?”

“…”

Kiguchi looked confused.

“What I said─could you be more specific?”

“You know, about the curse and all.”

“Oh.”

This would hardly seem to be enough to jog her memory, but Kiguchi caught his drift. While she had a tendency to take things way too seriously, overall she was perceptive.

“I do remember saying that it felt like some kind of a curse. I was speaking, of course, to the way that your abilities, Master Shichika, are more readily apparent when you fight without a sword, as opposed to fighting with one─but in retrospect, my choice of words was awfully disrespectful. Please forgive me.”

Kiguchi bowed her head.

Shichika panicked.

“Whoa, no need to apologize.”

This conversation was not exactly going smoothly.

Shichika may have been an insensitive rube, a wild boy unable to take a hint, but after over half a year of traveling alongside Togame, he had lost his innocence to some degree and gained a certain sensitivity, an ability to read between the lines, at least occasionally. Yet as a result, he had grown uncomfortable with the simple act of carrying on a conversation.

He was ashamed of being such a lousy conversationalist.

At times like this, he wished he had even a tenth of Togame’s charisma.5

It was so hard for him to share his thoughts.

“Honestly, I think you were exactly right─I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. So, I was thinking─”

Kyotoryu.

From the First Master, Kazune Yasuri─up on through the Sixth Master, Mutsue Yasuri, celebrated as the Hero of the Rebellion, to the current master, Shichika Yasuri.

Not one of them─could swing a sword to save his life.

Which is why─they called them swordless swordsmen.

“─Suppose you’re right, and I am actually cursed, I was hoping you could tell me more.”

Hence─why he came.

Essentially sneaking away6 from Togame.

Shichika, her supposedly loyal bodyguard, had come over to the dojo on his own, without asking for permission.

“Oh, but Master Shichika─”

Kiguchi looked like she was in a fix.

“I must admit that I was careless to use a word like curse so lightly─but think of it as a kind of joke. I’ve never heard of anything along those lines about your school.”

“Wait, really?”

“Really─I’m terribly sorry for causing this confusion. This sort of slip is out of character for me.”

Again, she bowed her head.

Though Shichika was not seeking an apology.

“Huh.”

I guess that makes sense.

Not like Shichika actually thought that he was “cursed” simply because he couldn’t swing a sword─besides, he didn’t even believe in curses.

And neither did Togame.

While they saw the world from different perspectives, Shichika and Togame were alike, in that both of them were realists.7

“Yeah─but that guy Sabi said something similar, which kinda made me wonder.”

“Sabi?”

This name struck a chord with Kiguchi.

Hers was not a sword for killing, but for cultivating the soul─as a swordsman, however, she could not help but perk up when she heard this name.

“You mean─Hakuhei Sabi?”

“Yeah…wait, didn’t I tell you? He used to own one of the Mutant Blades, like you.”

“Is that so…”

Kiguchi sighed with admiration.

This comparison of status was not exactly fair. Up until about six months ago, when Shichika had battled Sabi, he had been owner of Hakuto the Whisper, one of the Twelve Possessed, the thinnest and most delicate sword in existence, as well as the most beautiful, nothing like Zanki Kiguchi, who had taken on Oto the Cured as a matter of course, a mantle passed down from the previous generation when she became Twelfth Master of the Heartland School─

But there was no way Shichika could articulate these particulars.

After he spoke, he was aware that he had cut too many corners with his explanation, but the thought of what would be required to set things straight was enough to make him let it go.

All that she needed to know, Shichika concluded, was the fact that he had fought Sabi.

“So, Master Shichika, you struck down the mighty Sabi, the Strongest Swordsman in Japan─I’m so embarrassed I was ignorant of this. What kind of swordsman does that make me?”

“Word spread around Kyushu─but only because we fought on Ganryu Island in Suo. It seems like people haven’t really heard about it north of Edo, much less up here in Dewa.”

At least according to Togame.

“I guess it’s a matter of time.”

“I wish you had mentioned this sooner.”

“Yeah, but considering how pitiful a sight I was armed with a wooden sword, you think you would’ve believed me if I’d told you that I beat Hakuhei Sabi?”

“Hmm─maybe not.”

Though not going so far as to apologize again, Kiguchi nodded solemnly, looking ashamed of her lack of sophistication.

She must have heard his question as a jab.8

This conversation─was hopeless.

He felt bad for Zanki Kiguchi─dead serious, the polar opposite of his personality. Up against somebody as overwhelmingly9 severe as her, most anybody would have had a difficult time carrying on a conversation.

“Well─what exactly did Master Sabi tell you?”

“Uhh…”

Shichika scrambled to remember.

“Something about the Kiki Pedigree…not too sure. Anyway, I know he said the Kyotoryu was bound to him.”

“Bound, you say?”

“Yeah, he said the Kyotoryu was bound to Kiki Shikizaki─something about how we can’t escape his lineage─because he made the Kyotoryu as a memento or something… To be honest, I have no idea what he was saying. Even Togame had to admit she was confused─”

“I can understand if it was just you, but if Madame Togame was unable to make any sense of what he said, that makes it quite the riddle.”

This comment sounds like something of a dis on10 Shichika’s intellect, but opposite as these two may have been in some respects, they were a perfect match, in that they spoke without feeling the need to crack jokes or make snide remarks.

In that sense, if not in any other, their conversation was exquisite.

“When you said curse, it made me think of when Sabi said the word bound─though I dunno, maybe there’s no connection. Since you’re both swordsmen, I guess you might have similar reactions.”

“I’m nowhere near deserving of comparison with the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi.”

“Stop being so modest─to be honest, I’ve been kinda bummed I can’t just go all-out against a swordsman strong as you─”

“I’m sorry that I failed to meet your expectations─but my teaching holds me back.11 As Master of the Heartland School, I am unable to engage in mortal combat…”

With that.

Kiguchi paused─like she was thinking.

When she grew quiet, Shichika stopped talking.

Forced to wait until she spoke again.

“While I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about your wish to fight me uninhibited, there is something I can do to alleviate at least a little bit of the frustration that you seem to be experiencing.”

“Huh?”

“Just a moment.”

Carrying the sword that Shichika had returned to her, Kiguchi went to the edge of the room and placed it on the dojo floor.

Next, she doffed the jacket of her gi, thoroughly12 soaked with sweat after long hours of practice, and placed it, folded, by the sword.

While Kiguchi looked thin even in her beefy gi, her body thus exposed looked even thinner─and while her breasts were of average size, they were wrapped tightly13 with a sash,14 to keep them out of the way.

Keeping on her hakama, Kiguchi proceeded to the center of the room, stripped to the waist but for the sash around her chest.

Being unsure of where to look─was no issue for Shichika. His inchoate sensitivity had yet to reach the point where the sight of a half-naked woman registered as such.

“Over here, Master Shichika,” said Kiguchi.

“Huh? What are you doing over there?”

Though full of questions, Shichika did as he was told and walked over to Kiguchi─before halting once he was a short distance away from her.

He felt the spirit15 emanating from Kiguchi.

The spirit─of the fight.16

The aura he had felt when they had fought the day before─

“I think you know exactly what we’re doing─”

Kiguchi spoke─and took position.

Ready for kenpo.

Kenpo─not swordplay.17

“─This time, I thought we’d fight each other empty-handed.”

Thus far, Shichika Yasuri had fought Zanki Kiguchi on three different occasions─the first and second of which involved both of them using wooden swords.

The third time, Shichika went barehanded, while Kiguchi used a wooden sword.

But now─for their fourth battle, Kiguchi was proposing something new.

This time─the two of them would fight barehanded.

“You mean…you can do kenpo, too?”

“We’ll see,” Kiguchi answered. “Come over here and find out for yourself─I know it’s frustrating, but I’ll still need for you to go easy on me. You see, this is my first time entering a fight without a sword─”

“…”

Their fourth fight.

Although without Togame, who had thus played the role of referee, there was no one there to give the signal to fight. Hence, once Shichika moved─the battle had begun.

Still unsure of what Kiguchi was trying to do, Shichika started going with the flow and tried a shuto─though holding back significantly.

Putting far less oomph18 into the move, he in fact sliced his hand that much faster.

Yet Kiguchi deftly dodged the shuto he had fired at her breast─using the opportunity to make a run at Shichika’s torso.

Closing the space between them in an instant.

“…nkk!”

This was enough to make Shichika go tense all over─their strange duel may have started without explanation, at first posing no threat to him whatsoever, but nobody had closed in on him so easily since his showdown against Hakuhei Sabi.

His body responded, operating out of reflex.

Kneejerk reaction.19

“Kyotoryu─Mokuren! Kyotoryu─Noichigo!”

Using his knees and elbows, he countered Kiguchi at close quarters─the Mokuren being a flying knee kick, and the Noichigo a flurry of elbows. Not to the face, but body blows which, if delivered effectively, would flense20 the very skin and muscle from his adversary.

Shichika had meant─to pull his punches.

But he had countered out of reflex.

He may have pulled his punches─but they’d land with full force.

Up against these knees and elbows, Kiguchi evaded him by shifting her upper body, without moving her feet. Bending gracefully backwards─and snapping back to her original position.

Planting a headbutt in his chest.

Gently.

Yet after his serial misses, this gentle attack was plenty─to make Shichika stumble.

He took a step back, managing to stand his ground, but Kiguchi doubled back─squatting for a second only to burst straight upwards and whack him with the heel of her palm─grazing Shichika’s jaw.

“Ugh…”

Feeling his brain jiggle in his skull─Shichika somehow managed to catch her arm.

And with that, Shichika thought, the fight was his.

Although the Kyotoryu was fundamentally a school of swordplay, and thus designed for fighting swordsmen─an empty-handed enemy did not require different moves.

Countering kenpo was no problem.

Like when Nanami Yasuri fought Chocho Maniwa.

Raised in the peculiar setting of Haphazard Island, Shichika was so accustomed to fighting emptyhanded that it almost made him homesick─after all, he had spent nineteen years training exclusively under the late master of his school, Mutsue Yasuri.

“Kyotoryu─Kikyo!”21

Shichika went to twist Kiguchi by the arm─in a grappling move intent on locking the enemy’s shoulder and elbow in one go.

This would seem to guarantee his victory.

However, this time around Kiguchi used her lower body to break free─spinning away before Shichika could make the twist, freeing herself from his hand.

But there was more.

Using the momentum of her spin─she threw her weight into her shoulder and slammed it into him.

Making a direct hit.

Because of the vast difference in size and weight, Kiguchi was hardly able to throw Shichika backwards─but perhaps by chance, her thin shoulder nailed Shichika in the lung, knocking the wind out of him momentarily.

So that he gasped for air.

No time to catch his breath.

Shichika was well aware─painfully aware. Unable to inhale, he did his best to make a counterstrike.

He had to make some space.

Close range─was her domain.

He was too close to make a hit.

By now he understood why she had doffed her gi and stripped down to her hakama─it was easier to move. That simple. Her speed was on an entirely different level from when she was encumbered by her pads and wooden sword.

Yet this awareness was not enough to explain the unexpected quickness of her reflexes─Kiguchi the swordsman and the Kiguchi he faced now did not match up as the same person. Shichika expected her to move far slower. The breach of expectation was debilitating.

His panting counterstrike dodged summarily, thrashing like a wounded animal─he gave Kiguchi yet another chance to make a hit.

This time, hammering the heel of her hand downward.

Ordinarily, the move would have targeted the crown, but due to the aforementioned differences in stature, she came dangerously close to nailing him in the collarbone.

Shichika had been so conscious of their “different stature” that he ruled out any possibility of a hit from above. It was all that he could do to dodge the move─

No time to think of what came next.

He failed to realize that the swat was only the beginning.

“Whew─”

Kiguchi followed through, letting her palm reach the dojo floor, so that for a moment she crouched forward─and then.

Propping one hand on the floor, she sprung her body up.

From a handstand, she swept her legs along an oblique path, in a graceful swinging kick. This would have taken off the head of somebody less tall, but up against Shichika it cut an arc that passed just below his armpit, right over his pectorals.

He never saw this coming.

The very notion of her going from a handstand to a kick was unimaginable to Shichika─not like the Kyotoryu was lacking similar attacks, but he would have never expected Kiguchi to make a move like that.

“Grh, ugh─”

Shichika took the full brunt of the kick.

Neither intentionally nor courageously, he caught her foot square in the chest─though it was not too much for him to take.

From there, he hoisted up her leg.

As if to scoop her up.

Propped up on a single hand, Kiguchi was unable to defend herself and tumbled to the floor─expecting her to spring up right away, Shichika leapt back and took position.

“Ouch!” Kiguchi said. She sat where she had fallen, no sign of standing up. “Wow, well done─I thought that I could fend you off a little while longer, but I guess I reached my limit. You beat me, Master Shichika.”

“Huh?”

“In four fights, I’ve bested you only once─truly remarkable.”

After a beat, Kiguchi worked her way back up to standing.

“How are you feeling, Master Shichika? Have I given you some small amount of succor?”22

“Hmm, I’m not really sure,” Shichika answered candidly, relaxing his stance. “So wait─you know kenpo just as well as swordplay?” he continued. “I can’t believe how well you dodged my moves─that was insane. Pretty bold of you to lie to my face, though, calling that the first time that you fought someone barehanded─”

“I tell no lies. I’m constitutionally unable to do so. I have to tell it like it is,” Kiguchi insisted. “I’ll give you this, though, Master Shichika. They say that mastery of one art means mastery of a thousand─it’s true. I have so much to learn, but as a swordsman, I count myself among the masters of the art, though somewhere toward the bottom. Hence─if challenged to a fight, even barehanded, I’m able to hold my own, to some extent.”

“To some extent? Come on!”

“Okay, but you only see things that way because we jumped straight into battle, without any preamble─all I did was catch you by surprise. Surely, you were not expecting me to come at you with kenpo?”

“Nope, I wasn’t.”

“Right. And you know what? Strictly speaking, I wasn’t using kenpo─I was just pretending that I knew what I was doing. But even so, I’m able to hold my own to some extent─as you have seen.”

“So, are you saying...”

Shichika considered this.

Thinking, in an attempt to figure out what Kiguchi wanted him to take away from this.

“When I had to use the wooden sword, it was so strange how weak I felt─like my body was refusing to grip the sword.”

“Because it was,” Kiguchi nodded. “Hence why I used the word curse─and why Master Sabi said that you were bound. We extol swordplay as a fine art, but at a fundamental level, you’re just swinging a stick around─the wooden sword is the most primitive and violent of all weapons. Hardly what you might call refined. Under ordinary circumstances, no warrior should be weaker thusly armed.”

“So you’re saying─that even if I am the Kyotoryu, it makes no sense that I can’t hold my own armed with a sword, even if it doesn’t help me much, since you can fight without a sword and still do fine?”

“All I’m saying is perhaps…the obstacle was forced upon you.”

Kiguchi chose her words with care.

“What I mean is─perhaps you’ve just been led to believe that holding a sword will make you weaker. That doing so would be unnatural for the Kyotoryu─were you not raised to think this way? It’s possible this expectation─has inhibited your very physical abilities─”

“I doubt it─but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

What about his genius of a sister?

Not like she was fully liberated from the curse.

But her ability to defeat her less-than-genius brother could largely be credited to her ability to wield Akuto the Eel, one of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki, despite being an exemplar of the Kyotoryu.

“Maybe so, Master Shichika. But regardless, I imagine there are other reasons─persistent and essential reasons, in the absence of which the story would not add up.”

“Hmm.”

“This is just a hunch, Master Shichika, based on my own experience as a swordsman─but just as the Heartland School has certain precepts that make it what it is, I would venture to say these reasons, if you will, are what makes the Kyotoryu the discipline it is. And I have a feeling that these things cannot be easily defined─as skills or lack thereof.”

Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School.

With that, she ended the scene.

■　■

Hereafter, Togame the Schemer, having realized Shichika was missing, headed over to the dojo, only to discover what could easily be mistaken for a clandestine rendezvous23 between the swordsmen (one of whom was bare to the waist, the other stripped down to the sash around her breasts), causing yet another one of the conniptions24 prompted by renewed suspicion of a love affair, but since this represents business as usual, let us forge ahead.

1 もったいぶる MOTTAI BURU act pretentiously

2 顚末 TENMATSU all the particulars

3 政敵 SEITEKI “political opponent”

4 勝手知ったる他人の家 KATTE SHITTARU TANIN NO IE making yourself a little too much at home

5 交渉術 KŌSHŌJUTSU negotiating abilities

6 眼を盗む ME WO NUSUMU “steal the eye”

7 現実主義者 GENJITSU SHUGISHA pragmatists

8 皮肉 HINIKU sarcasm; cutting remarks more generally

9 一辺倒 IPPENTŌ “falling to one side”

10 低く見積もった HIKUKU MITSUMOTTA estimate on the low end

11 垣根 KAKINE fence; barrier (to action)

12 ぐっしょり GUSSHORI onomatopoeia for drenched

13 がっちり GACCHIRI onomatopoeia for constraint

14 さらし SARASHI wide strip of cotton, usually white and worn to protect or warm the organs

15 覇気 HAKI “overwhelming spirit” dynamism

16 闘気 TŌKI “battle spirit” bellicosity

17 拳法 剣法 KENPŌ KENPŌ “law/method of the fist” vs. “law/method of the sword”

18 威力 IRYOKU “menacing power”

19 反射神経 HANSHA SHINKEI “reflex nerves”

20 切り裂く KIRI SAKU “cut and tear”

21 桔梗 KIKYŌ “The Bellflower”

22 風穴を開ける KAZA ANA WO AKERU “open air holes” breathe life (into a tired situation)

23 密会 MIKKAI “secret meeting”

24 癇癪 KANSHAKU angry fit

■　■

There was a time when his domain, entrusted to him as a daimyo, was so vital that it bore comparison to the Capital and to Owari, the seat1 of the Yanari Shogunate─but those days were gone now, lost with the late Rebellion.

Lo, the Rebellion.

The only thing close to a war to have occurred under the rule of the Owari Bakufu, which reigned over the land under the slogan “Peace and Order”─though as of late, its legacy was losing relevance.

Which makes sense─after all, it had been over twenty years.

The ranks of those who knew naught of the war had grown.

As had the number of people unaware that this city had once prospered─to their generation, Oshu was synonymous with a disgraceful obsolescence.

If there was one place you could call a destination.

Then it was Hyakkeijo2─the site of Hida Castle, once home to Takahito Hida.

The place where those linked with the Rebellion he had launched had been exterminated by the new regime.

■　■

So.

The instant that Togame the Schemer set foot on the grounds of Hyakkeijo, her face became distraught and her displeasure audible.

Her appearance was the same as ever─

White hair that would have stood out anywhere.

The seemingly dozen layers of brash and brilliant silk.

Down to her flat-soled seta─but her face was out of character, uncomfortably disturbed.

The man standing beside her─stripped to the waist and dressed in but a hakama, wearing arm and leg guards, tousled hair, was Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu. Though not exactly the observant type, he had noticed something had come over Togame and found it hard to speak or even look her way. And so he gazed ahead.

Ahead─toward Hyakkeijo.

Where once stood Hida Castle.

It was a veritable slaughterhouse─though long since razed, the land having been used for public executions in only those few years following the late Rebellion. By now, there was no artifact or structure left to indicate its history.

Silly3 to call this place a destination.

When it was no more than a field.

Not a whiff of its lost function as a killing ground, or of the castle that once stood there─no more than an open piece of land.

Shichika had heard that Hida Castle went up in flames in the end, leaving not a cinder,4 and that in its years used as a site of capital punishment, the means of execution were not exactly, shall we say…sophisticated. Seeing it now, its history may come as a surprise.

─I figured it would be a whole lot creepier,5 he thought.

Though he knew better not to say as much─with Togame looking so upset beside him.

Her family.

Her close relations.

Nearly all of whom─were slaughtered on these grounds.

“…”

Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu─whose name and origins were unknown, and who had edged her way into the inner circle of the bakufu, was in actuality connected to the insurgence─being the daughter of Takahito Hida, Kaoyaku of Oshu and principal figure6 of the Rebellion.

Positioning herself within the government.

Channeling her energies toward rounding up the Twelve Possessed.

Every effort but a means for her revenge against the bakufu.

Her careerist inclinations,7 too, were no more than a means to gain direct audience with His Excellency, the Yanari Shogun.

And so─of course Togame lost her usual composure upon entering these grounds, the very soil of which was supersaturated with8 justification for her vengefulness.

─That said.

The fact that his own father, Mutsue Yasuri, the “Hero of the Rebellion,” had been the one who struck down9 her father, Takahito Hida, made it especially difficult for Shichika to discuss the particulars of the situation with Togame…

─The castle is gone because this is where Takahito Hida died.

Shichika remembered his father’s heroic retelling of the event.

How he entered the burning castle on his own and took the head of Takahito Hida, who likely would have otherwise burned into obscurity with Hida Castle─

An exploit that had won him accolades as “Hero of the Rebellion.”

This was the peak of life for Mutsue Yasuri, who shortly after found himself marooned.

Hyakkeijo.

The premise and the catalyst behind the deeds of Togame the Schemer.

And the circumstances linking her with Shichika Yasuri─were all here.

Though no more than a field.

These things persisted, in the land as in the air.

“…I don’t like this place one bit.”

Finally─at long last.

Togame the Schemer opened her mouth to speak.

When they arrived, the sun had been high overhead, but at this point it was making its way down─Togame had spent hours maintaining that moody silence.

Shichika doing his best to keep her company.

“I was so confident I had this hunt for the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki in the bag─but out of nowhere, the Princess got the better of me…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Shichika nodded at Togame. “Things have been pretty weird─at least since Bito the Sundial. And Seito the Garland feels like more of the same. You think─she knows the whereabouts of the other two swords? Dokuto the Basilisk and Ento the Bead─”

“We can’t even say for sure that Seito the Garland10 is still here. Both times we’ve returned to Owari, the Princess has given us new information on the swords, almost like she’s pushing us away11─isn’t that strange? I mean, I can see once, but twice?”

Shichika could not help but agree with this concern12 wholeheartedly. Standing by during her conversation with the Princess, he had asked himself the exact same thing─

“Congratulations.”

Her Highness, Princess Negative, had told them.

After winning Oto the Cured from Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School, at Shogi Village in Tendo, in Dewa, Togame the Schemer had returned to Owari, having been there just a month before in August,13 and yet again she had been summoned, along with her trusty sword, to Mansion Negative, the residence of Princess Negative, Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate.

While being mortal enemies gave them a certain intimacy, the Grand Commander of Arms and the Inspector General had essentially no good reason for convening. As a result, Togame was not technically obliged to show up if summoned by the Princess─but baited with more information on the Twelve Possessed, she felt the need, in part because of her position in the government, to hear the Princess out.

In fact, Princess Negative may have engineered these very circumstances─Togame had told Shichika later on.

The Princess could have been pulling strings since her resurgence─waiting for Togame to come marching home to Owari, once she had gained traction in her Sword Hunt.

Personally, Shichika doubted that the Princess could have pulled strings so effectively, but after all those years of shared antagonism, Togame saw things differently.

Regardless, there they were─

In a chamber of Mansion Negative.

Princess Negative, sitting in the seat of honor.

Togame and Shichika, seated before her.

Like a replay of their last visit in August.

“Your Highness… Is that guy up there in the ceiling?” Shichika inquired.

Starting off with this question, he had ignored her word of praise, but since Togame had apparently done so by design, there was no need for Shichika to take heed.

Coming from Princess Negative, the praise felt like a trap.14

“That guy? Who exactly do you mean?”

The Princess gave them a look of surprise.

Blond hair and dazzling blue eyes.

But her kimono fit so well that it looked tailor-made.

The metal fan clasped in her hand was, at the moment, closed.

“Do we have some mutual acquaintance I’ve forgotten?”

“…Um, you know, Emonzaemon─the Lieutenant.”

Emonzaemon Soda.

The Non-Ninja─confidant and trusty weapon of Princess Negative.

Playing the same role, Shichika reasoned, that the Kyotoryu is playing for Togame.

“Didn’t you say last time that he’s always up there in the ceiling? I figured that would mean he’s up there now.”

“Ah yes─I know who you mean.” Princess Negative raised her chin and glanced up at the ceiling. “Of course, of course. His name is so long that it’s easy to forget─I appreciate you taking his presence into account, but at the moment, he’s stepped out.”

“Out?”

“If you must know, I’m having him assassinate Hohoh Maniwa,” the Princess told them nonchalantly.

Though Togame had shown no reaction whatsoever to the Princess’s opening word of praise, this statement was too shocking to ignore.

“Did you just say─assassinate? Hohoh Maniwa?”

“I sure did.” The Princess nodded briskly. “I understand you and the Maniwa had forged some kind of an alliance─but why should that stop Emonzaemon from operating independently?”

“How could you─” Togame made her displeasure clear. “I have my own plan, thank you very much. I don’t recall asking you to intervene.”

“Hold your horses. I’m not too fond of being yelled at by you, so allow me to explain. That gloomy bemasked dandy15 has his own personal grudge against the Maniwa.”

Gloomy bemasked dandy…

Harsh words, thought Shichika.

Especially when it was Princess Negative who insisted that Emonzaemon Soda wear the mask (on the dubious premise of him being “gloomy”).

“Personal grudge?” asked Togame. “What would make that gloomy bemasked dandy hold a grudge against the Maniwa?”

Following suit, Togame described Emonzaemon using the same words, but Her Highness showed no sign of having noticed.

“The Aioi Clan,” she proclaimed. “I know that you’re aware of Emonzaemon being a former ninja, but I take it that you’re unaware of the clan to which he once belonged─at this point, I may as well inform you that it was the Aioi Clan. Ever heard of them?”

“…If I’m not mistaken, were they not once hailed as being on par16 with the Maniwa, sharing their status as outliers from the ninja community? I was under the impression they were wiped out late in the era of the Old Shogun─clashing with the Maniwa in an epic battle.”

“Brava!”17

Princess Negative laughed hysterically.

Togame the Schemer and Princess Negative.

Known as the two she-devils of the bakufu, who while holding different offices had a great many things in common─but the starkest difference between them, it now occurred to Shichika, was the well-nigh flippant18 cheer displayed by Princess Negative in times like these.

“Wow, I must say I’m impressed you knew that─when the Aioi have been essentially erased from history.”

“History Shmistory,”19 Togame said. “I suppose that makes Emonzaemon Soda the last of the Aioi Clan. Makes sense. That would explain all kinds of things─I might even say that it’s the only possible explanation for a clown like him winding up the way he is…so, am I to understand you’re leveraging his background to avail yourself, Your Highness, of the all-but-lost Aioi Ninpo?”

“Incorrect,” said Princess Negative.

She snapped open her metal fan.

Smiling all the while.

“I could care less about the Aioi or their ninpo─as intriguing as it may sound. I merely wanted to reject the blundering existence of that gloomy buffoon.”

“Is that so…”

“What would you have me say? Make no mistake, I take no pity on Emonzaemon─I’m merely using him to access the Aioi Ninpo─would that satisfy you?”

While it remained unclear why such a confession would be satisfying, Princess Negative said as much and closed her metal fan.

“At any rate─the Maniwa are Emonzaemon’s bitter rivals.20 This has nothing to do with your Sword Hunt. He really was acting on his own accord.”

“You’re saying that he suddenly decided to pay back a one-hundred-and-seventy-year-old grudge?”

“Now would be as good a time as any─look how weak the Maniwa have become.”

“You didn’t order him to do it?”

“It wasn’t like I didn’t.”

The double negative.

In other words, the Princess must have ordered him.

“So he’s off assassinating Hohoh Maniwa─” Togame said. “Assassinating Hohoh Maniwa… Not like I’d ever expect a straight answer from you, Princess, but let me ask you this. Do you think that’s even possible?”

“Who knows? To be honest, I ordered him to do so back when you were trying to capture Bito the Sundial at Lake Fuyo, meaning he’s been gone for almost two months now. The fact he hasn’t come back yet could mean that he’s been thwarted.”21

“Thwarted.”

“Regardless, I’d expect him to have killed off one or two of the Maniwa Ninjas in the process…which reminds me. Here’s another bit of trivia for you. At present, how many of the Twelve Bosses do you suppose there are?”

“Four─right?” answered Togame.

Shichika was under the same impression.

However.

Princess Negative had news for them.

“Three,” she said. “Hohoh Maniwa, Pengin Maniwa, and Oshidori Maniwa─that gloomy bemasked recluse22 of a dandy has taken care of Umigame Maniwa already.”

So now the gloomy bemasked dandy was a recluse, too.

Harsh words.

“Umigame, huh.”

“Hahaha, feeling relieved? I bet you must have wondered how that ninja swordsman would have performed in a fight against Shichika over here.”

“Well─to be honest, Oshidori seems like much more of a threat. Still…hmm. Three left, huh… Regardless of whether he succeeds or fails in his attempt to murder Hohoh Maniwa…”

The Schemer muttered to herself.

No doubt making adjustments to her numerous schemes, in light of this development.

“Even so, Princess. Haven’t you made yourself extremely vulnerable? Entertaining me and my katana, Shichika, without that gloomy recluse of a dandy in the house─”

Togame piggybacked on the new phrasing.23

Unless Emonzaemon comes home soon, his moniker’s likely to get even worse, Shichika fretted, though it was none of his business.

Well, after all, he could be next.

“Say I was of a mind to murder you right now. How would you defend yourself?”

“I wouldn’t, that’s how─but I strongly doubt that you would ever dare.”

“Hah. It’s an honor to be held in such strong confidence, Princess.”

“Of course. Aren’t you and I friends?”

“…”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m kidding, okay? If you’re planning to murder me, then go ahead, but before you do, you’d better listen to what I have to say.”

“You have something to say?”

“I mean─we both know how much you love information on the Twelve Possessed,” the Princess sneered.

And with that repeated the opening remark they had ignored.

“Which is why I said─congratulations.”

“…”

“You’ve returned to Owari with flying colors, the proud new owner of both Bito the Sundial and Oto the Cured. Well done, well done. At this point─you have captured a whopping nine of the Twelve Possessed.”

Zetto the Leveler from Komori Maniwa.

Zanto the Razor from Uneri Ginkaku.

Sento the Legion from Meisai Tsuruga.

Hakuto the Whisper from Hakuhei Sabi.

Zokuto the Armor from Kanara Azekura.

Soto the Twin from Konayuki Itezora.

Akuto the Eel from Nanami Yasuri.

Bito the Sundial from Skytron.

Oto the Cured from Zanki Kiguchi.

For a running total of nine swords.

Over the span of just nine months, from the beginning of the year, they had captured nine of the Twelve Possessed not even the Old Shogun could obtain─a success that would prompt anyone, Princess Negative or otherwise, to offer their “congratulations.”

However.

Coming from Princess Negative─the comment was suspicious.

Even happy-go-lucky Shichika knew as much.

“Hahaha, at this rate, you’ll have the last three swords in no time!”

“Nonsense─I haven’t asked for your opinion on my job. There’s no way it will be so easy. At present, we have no information whatsoever on the three remaining swords─for the time being, I’ll be devoting all my resources to reconnaissance. And to stay productive, I plan to stick around24 Owari for the foreseeable future.”

“You said the same thing last time─but things got in the way.”

“Huh?”

“By things, of course, I am referring to myself,” the Princess clarified. “And just like last time─I will now give you another hint, making it impossible for you to stick around Owari. You won’t even have a chance to catch your breath.”25

“…”

“Last time, I gave you information on Lake Fuyo─which led eventually to your procurement of Bito the Sundial, but this time, I have direct intelligence for you about the Mutant Blade itself.”

“Direct intelligence…”

“Pertaining to Seito the Garland,” Princess Negative continued unperturbed. “Its owner is Hermit Magus26 Rinne Higaki.27 You’ll find the sword at Hyakkeijo in Oshu.”

─Ten days had passed since they received this information.

And though it had been somewhat of an exaggeration that the two of them would not have a chance to catch their breath, sure enough Togame the Schemer was unable, yet again, to stick around Owari, practically doubling back and heading off to Hyakkeijo in Oshu─

Which brought them to this empty field.

“Remember how you said it felt like she was pushing us away?” The field was empty, nothing between them and the horizon, but all the same, Shichika made sure the coast was clear when bringing this up with Togame. “Seems like she really is, huh? Could be that there’s some reason the Princess doesn’t want you to stick around Owari.”

“That may well be. Assuming she has some kind of a plan in the works, I can see why I would be unwelcome─but even so, it makes no sense why she would dole out information on the Twelve Possessed. She may have given us the runaround, but she must have known Bito the Sundial was at Lake Fuyo.”

“I guess. But only if Seito the Garland really is somewhere in this field, right?”

There was no guarantee.

Scanning this barren landscape, it was easy to suspect this last bit of intelligence on where to find Seito the Garland had been a manic outburst, nothing more.

But the Schemer was certain.

“This is the place,” she said. “I’m sure of it─what reason would she have to lie? Although it almost makes me sick to admit, this goes to show how bizarrely eager both Emonzaemon and that woman are to cooperate with my Sword Hunt.”

“Same goes for Bito the Sundial and Seito the Garland, but how do you think the Princess, being who she is, got ahold of this information?”

“She has connections, that’s for sure. I was certain I had rendered a good many of them inoperative─but it would seem that they have rallied alongside the Princess.”

“Yeah, but still…”

Shichika once again scanned the vicinity.

Desolate.

Thinking it over, that one word said perhaps everything there was to say about this place where so many had been slain─

“It’s like─this place is empty.”

He was referring not only to Hyakkeijo─but to this whole leg of their journey, from the borderlands of Oshu to the land where they now stood.

Empty was an exaggeration.28

That said, the sentiment of this exaggeration was not entirely off base.

The villages were scattered─as were the people.

Far from lively.29

Void of life.30

As if the land itself─had perished.

Withered and rotted, dead to the world.

“…Be careful how you talk about a person’s hometown.”

“Uh, wait, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“The people governing this place were massacred, so what do you expect? It looks like others came in to replace them, but evidently things did not go very well─I mean, I’d heard that things had gone awry, but I had no idea that it was so severe. This is my first time home in twenty years─and I don’t recognize a single thing.”

Made sense.

Unless somebody told you there had been a castle here, you never would have guessed─because every trace had been erased.

The Owari Bakufu premised its reign on peace and order.

Which made the late Rebellion a disgrace.31

“…So does that mean the bakufu, in a way, let this place fall apart to make an example of it? Like, a way of showing everyone32 how dumb it was to start a rebellion, by not even trying to rebuild the town?”

“That’s some deep thinking for a guy like you. Though I’d call it a third-rate strategy.”

Careful with her phrasing, neither negating nor agreeing with what Shichika had said, Togame the Schemer began walking─out into the plain.

Not caring whether her brash and brilliant finery was stained.

Mud. Dirt. Plants. Flowers.

Unlike Inaba Desert, which they had visited months before, this place was hardly inorganic─but a feeling that the land itself had died persisted.

Shichika was distraught. He did not remember feeling this sensation in the Level One Disaster Areas of Mt. Odori in Ezo and Lake Fuyo in Edo. Although he knew that he had never seen this place before─

He felt something was missing.

Like he had lost something dear to him─no.

More like something dear to him had been trampled underfoot.

He felt this way─he had not actually lost anything himself, so nothing of his could have been trampled, but just the same. He couldn’t imagine how Togame must feel, in her heart of hearts, as she pushed forward through the grass.

The very thought was unimaginable.

The place where she was born and raised…

“This is not exactly the trip home I had anticipated─but here we are.”

“Just making sure, but there’s no way the Princess knew this was your hometown when she sent you out here, right? To get you going, I mean.”

“I should think not. If she had learned I am the daughter of Takahito Hida, I would have been killed posthaste. Perhaps this is too complicated for an island boy like you, Shichika, but it’s the sort of thing that would result in a summary execution, not some roundabout attempt to rattle me.”

“Hm…guess you’re right. Just feels like too neat a coincidence.”

“Our adversary this time is a hermit magus, after all. Fits the bill.”

He had been afraid to ask her.

Togame had been in a foul mood since her exchange with Princess Negative in Owari, and her foul mood had not been helped by their arrival in Oshu, hence why he was afraid.

Finally, here was his chance to ask.

“Rinne Higaki…right? Why do they call her the hermit magus? And what was up with your reaction when you heard her name? Are you two old acquaintances or─”

“We are not old acquaintances. Every last one of my old acquaintances has been exterminated,” said Togame. “Dead and gone.”

“…”

“I know nothing of this Rinne Higaki─I was merely piqued by the name ‘Rinne.’ To think that anyone today would have a name so foolish─though from a hermit magus, what do you expect.”

“Now that’s what I call being roundabout.”

“I am not being roundabout. I know as little as you do about what we’ve gotten ourselves into. This time around, it’s all riding on our information from the Princess─which means we need to hoof it33 through the fields and track Higaki down ourselves.”

“Look, I know this isn’t as bad as Lake Fuyo, but from the looks of it there’s no one living here. I suppose Higaki could live in a nearby village─but even the closest one is pretty far! The villages here are so spread out… I guess we could check every single one we come across?”34

“Not a bad idea. But if what the Princess said to us is true─and Rinne Higaki is a bona fide35 hermit magus…”

Then.

Suddenly.

The very moment Togame spoke these words.

Literally, that very instant─they felt something appear.

Behind them? No.

In front of them.

There she was─right in front of Togame and Shichika.

Like she had been there all along─though where could she have hidden, in a field like this?

Slight in stature, looking half as tall as Shichika.

Long black hair tied back at her neck.

Impeccable posture─

“Huh?”

Shichika was confused.

“What’s this girl doing here?”

In response.

The girl smiled an ironic smile, far from girlish─

“Hah. So that’s how I appear to you?”

Without further ado, she introduced herself.

“I haven’t been a girl in quite some time─though I may as well enjoy it. Nice to meet you. I’m Rinne Higaki─a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I guess?”

1 お膝元 OHIZAMOTO “at the knee”

2 百刑場 HYAKKEIJŌ “locus of a hundred executions”

3 おこがましい OKOGAMASHII going too far

4 消し炭 KESHIZUMI “extinguished coal”

5 おどろおどろしい ODORO ODORO SHII gaudily unsettling

6 立役者 TATEYAKUSHA leading actor

7 出世を目論む SHUSSE WO MOKUROMU seeking to be promoted

8 色濃く集約 IROKOKU SHŪYAKU “abridged in thick color”

9 討った UTTA felled, defeated, killed

10 誠刀 銓 SEITŌ HAKARI “The Sincere Katana: Balance”

11 追い返す OIKAESU repel

12 疑問 GIMON question; source of doubt

13 葉月 HAZUKI “month of leaves” eighth month of the Japanese calendar

14 わざとらしい WAZATORASHII laden with ulterior motives

15 根暗仮面男 NEKURA KAMEN OTOKO “Morose Mask-Man”

16 双璧 SŌHEKI “twin jewels”

17 さすが過ぎる SASUGA SUGIRU “you have outdone yourself”

18 投げやり NAGEYARI negligent, irresponsible

19 歴史、ね[…]くだらぬ REKISHI, NE[…]KUDARANU “History? Trifling/Tedious”

20 怨敵 ONTEKI “hated enemy”

21 返り討ち KAERI UCHI seek revenge and lose

22 引きこもり HIKIKOMORI shut-in; a journalistic/sociological buzzword and deliberate anachronism

23 呼び方に便乗 YOBIKATA NI BINJŌ “hitch a ride on the manner of address”

24 腰を落ち着ける KOSHI WO OCHITSUKERU “settle down one’s hips”

25 腰を下ろす KOSHI WO OROSU “lower one’s hips”

26 仙人 SEN’NIN mystic; usually an old man with special powers living on a 山 YAMA mountain

27 彼我木輪廻 HIGAKI RIN’NE 彼我 HIGA other and own (sides, in contrast) 輪廻 RIN’NE transmigration

28 言い過ぎ IISUGI “saying too much”

29 活気 KAKKI “active spirit” (commercial) vitality

30 生気 SEIKI “raw spirit” human activity

31 失態 SHITTAI “loss of attitude” (embarrassing) mistake

32 国民 KOKUMIN the people of a nation

33 足を使って ASHI WO TSUKATTE using our feet

34 手当たり次第に TE ATARI SHIDAI NI “as they touch the hands”

35 偽りなく ITSUWARI NAKU without falsehood; free of deception

■　■

Three bosses in the Bird Unit─

“The Divine Phoenix”─Hohoh Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Life Line and Decapitation Cycle.

Alive and well.

The owner of Dokuto the Basilisk, one of the Twelve Possessed, the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

“The Feathered Reel”─Oshidori Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Thorough Thrashing.

Now dead.

Cut down in the ninth moon, at Izu, fighting Emonzaemon Soda.

“Backwords Shirasagi”─Shirasagi Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Flapjack-Flipping.

Now dead.

Cut down in the second moon, in Inaba Desert, fighting Ginkaku Uneri.

Three bosses in the Beast Unit─

“The Dogged Scourge”─Kyoken Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Foaming Mouth.

Now dead.

Cut down in the sixth moon, in Ezo, fighting Shichika Yasuri.

“Komori the Hell-Made”─Komori Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Star Cannon and Body Melt.

Now dead.

Cut down in the first moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Shichika Yasuri.

“The Nosey Otter”─Kawauso Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Infovac.

Now dead.

Cut down in the sixth moon, in Ezo, by the hand of his comrade, in the line of duty.1

Three bosses in the Bug Unit─

“Kamakiri the Head Hunter”─Kamakiri Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Mantis Talons.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

“Flying Butter Chocho”─Chocho Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Harlequin Butterfly.

Now dead.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

“Mitsubachi the Sharpshooter”─Mitsubachi Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Blunderbuzz.

Now dead.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

Three bosses in the Fish Unit─

“The Immortal Turtle”─Umigame Maniwa.

─No ninpo.

Now dead.

Cut down in the eighth moon, at Shinano, fighting Emonzaemon Soda.

“Kuizame the Sand Trap”─Kuizame Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Dust Devil.

Now dead.

Cut down in the third moon, in Izumo, fighting Meisai Tsuruga.

“Pengin the Breeder”─Pengin Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Fate Blaster and Lucky Pucks.

Alive and well.

Working in concert with Hohoh Maniwa─

■　■

Hohoh Maniwa made this announcement without altering the speed at which he walked along the highway.2 Pengin Maniwa, walking beside him, shivered at the very mention of it.

“Huh? O-O-O-Oshidori─”

“Afraid so,” stated Hohoh. “Which means the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa have been reduced to only two.”

The self-derision in his tone of voice was palpable.

Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the head of the Twelve Bosses, the rest of whom were crackpots,3 was among the few of them possessing any sociability─and as a result, he must have been quite bothered by these tragic excesses and excessive tragedy.

However─as the leader of the Maniwa Ninja Clan.

He was not about to speak abjectly of their circumstances.

“O-Only two…”

Pengin Maniwa, weak in the knees.

In stark contrast to Hohoh.

Out of all of the Twelve Bosses, nay, in all of Maniwa Village, he was the youngest to partake in battle─indeed, Pengin was just a boy.

But even in light of his young age, his weak nerves were anomalous.

He had the sort of personality that would not normally befit a ninja, much less a boss.

However, the fact that he not only partook in battle, but had been granted the elite rank of ninja boss, could be attributed to his ninpo, the Fate Blaster, which was truly out of hand─a fearsome ninpo, too much to handle for even Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the leader of the entire ninja clan.

Whether he liked it or not.

This was the ninpo that Pengin Maniwa had been bestowed.

From on high, or perhaps from somewhere else.

“Wh-Wh-What should we do, Hohoh? What do we do now─”

“What can be done? Not like we can rework our entire plan, on account of losing Oshidori─the two of us will have to head for Oshu.”

So it was.

At that moment─Hohoh and Pengin were on their way to Oshu.

Specifically, to Hyakkeijo.

The very place where Togame and Shichika sojourned, hoping to track down Seito the Garland─and obviously, not by coincidence.

Hohoh setting his sights on this place─to stop Togame the Schemer, once and for all.4

“Th-The Schemer has already gathered nine of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki…wh-which means she has expended all the information that you gave her, when the two of you forged your alliance in Satsuma in May. B-But that doesn’t explain why she would go to Oshu. In-Indeed, if you’re of a mind to renegotiate, now is the time…but Hohoh.”

“Enough. Say no more.” Hohoh shook his head. “Your stance is clear. I still believe that we’d be better off withholding our negotiations until the Schemer has obtained another one or two of the Twelve Possessed─and if we could afford to be choosy, we would wait until she has eleven, considering how our ranks have dwindled.”

With that.

Hohoh glanced down at the waist of his ninja garb─at the sword he carried in a motley scabbard.

One of the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

Venom stronger than any of the Twelve Possessed─despotically toxic.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

“Negotiating once she has captured the eleven other swords would be most opportune for us─but we no longer have the time for that. Not since that man appeared─”

“Th-That man…”

The man who ambushed their clandestine summit with Oshidori─

Coat and trousers, a pair of swords slung from his hips.

Wearing a mask, on which was scrawled the word “NON-NINJA.”

Acting fast, Oshidori had distracted him for long enough to let the two of them escape─but if Hohoh saw things as they were, she had sacrificed her life in the process.

A characteristic exit5 for a ninja.

Albeit out of character for a Maniwa.

And yet─in character for Oshidori.

But at this point, Hohoh’s guess was as good as Pengin’s.

“Wh-What was his name again…so many details unconfirmed…he doesn’t own one of the Twelve Possessed. He isn’t working for the Schemer─well, what is he?”

“If you rule out those two possibilities, only one remains,” said Hohoh. “You surprise me, Pengin─can’t you see? He must be working under Princess Negative, who's been reinstituted.”

“Princess Negative…b-but I haven’t heard a thing about her having somebody like him at her command… If she did, I wish the Schemer would have told us when we helped her take down the Princess.”

“That only goes to show the Schemer never trusted us at all. Not even Komori. She may have hired him as her first helper in the Sword Hunt, but she refused to divulge even the slightest matter of importance─”

Hohoh gazed off into the distance.

“─Which frankly puzzles me. When we met the Schemer in Satsuma in May, and again in Ezo in June, she acted like she trusted the Kyotoryu immensely. Of course, that could have been an act like so much else.”

“…I don’t see her as the kind of lady who would develop a soft spot, just because the two of them made a trip together.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

“Af-After the Sword Hunt is over and the Kyotoryu has served his purpose, he’ll be cast aside, just like the Maniwa.”

It was unlike Pengin to say such a thing.

He sounded totally disgusted.

“You don’t suppose she could have─lost her way.”

“On the contrary, perhaps a way is what she’s found. Regardless, we can expect to find out once we have the pleasure of reuniting with6 her in Oshu─but I digress. Back to the Princess. It would seem that woman operates according to a different set of standards7 from the Schemer. Unless I’m careful, I’ll be the next to lose my neck─in which case, you’d be the only one left, Pengin. Are you prepared to negotiate with the Schemer, on behalf of the entire ninja village?”

“N-Not one bit.”

This straight answer made Hohoh smile ruefully.8

“This would be a decent time to lie─though I suppose that’s perhaps too much to ask.”

“…Hohoh.”

Timidly─or even timorously,9 Pengin asked a question.

“Am I correct…that you might have a sense of who this man is after all?”

“What? It’s like I said just now. He’s working for the Princess. That’s my guess.”

“Not who he’s working for…but where he came from. Listening to you talk about him, I get the feeling that you’ve known each other for a long time─”

“Sharp as ever, Pengin.” Hohoh grinned. “You truly stand apart.”

“P-Please, you’re flattering me.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m lamenting the state of our village, in such sorry shape that we have forced you into battle before you’re ready, without giving you a chance to cultivate the genius that is your gift─hah. But I digress again. It would be going too far to say I have a sense of who he is. It’s no more than a hunch, hardly worth mentioning─I’m probably mistaken.”

“Mistaken?”

“Indeed. There is no way that man is still alive─and he would certainly not deign to work under Princess Negative. He’s much too proud. The sort of man who would not work for someone else even if he lost both of his arms. He was that kind of a ninja…”

Hohoh paused.

“This was long before your time.”

“N-Ninja? D-Does that make him a friend of yours?”

“Like I said, it can’t be him. That man is dead and gone─in our age, there are no proud ninjas left. Which applies to us as well─”

“…”

“Well then, let’s make some progress10─that bemasked gentleman,11 not being an old friend of ours, will likely try another ambush.”

“Puh…Perhaps.”

“If we succeed in our negotiations with the Schemer, and thus obtain all of the Twelve Possessed─I think it’s about time that I stepped down. It’s up to me to take responsibility for the ten bosses that we’ve lost. To let12 the next generation call the shots.”

“Y-You’re kidding,” Pengin said.

“I kid you not,” asserted Hohoh. “This is serious. Down the line, you’re the only ninja who could take over for me. At the end of the day, the Maniwa are relics of another era. Same as the Schemer and the Kyotoryu and Princess Negative─and even the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki. All relics of another time, the detritus13 of history. Especially that old friend of mine, whose time came over ten years ago─”

■　■

The man cited as the cardinal example of this was─contrary to Hohoh’s expectations, or perhaps in line with them, Princess Negative’s henchman, Emonzaemon Soda.

But at present, Emonzaemon Soda─though having been directed to assassinate Hohoh Maniwa, was biding his time in Owari, at Mansion Negative. Hohoh and Pengin may have feared another ambush from Emonzaemon as they made their way to Oshu─but in reality, there was no cause for concern.

After taking down Oshidori Maniwa, Emonzaemon had tracked Hohoh’s progress, committed to his assassination, but before long, upon hearing that Togame the Schemer had safely captured Oto the Cured, he repaired to Owari.

Hence.

During that second conference between Togame and the Princess─

The Lieutenant had been hiding in the ceiling after all. If the Schemer had been so impolitic as to sic14 Shichika on her then and there, Emonzaemon would have stepped up, or hopped down, and battled Shichika, which regardless of the outcome would have spelled the end of Togame’s political career.

It was a cruel trick─Princess Negative at her best.

Though for the most part, she was only trying to amuse herself, not actually hoping to waylay the Schemer. The plot amounted to little more than mischief─all the same.

Princess Negative.

Standing alone in Mansion Negative─in the middle of the room.

Poised, though not for action.

Looked toward the ceiling.

“By now, do you suppose that nasty woman─has met up with Rinne Higaki?” she asked. “Seito the Garland would mark their tenth conquest of the Twelve Possessed, and compared to all the others, this one should be quite easy─to be sure, Oto the Cured and Seito the Garland will likely prove to be the easiest Mutant Blades to capture. The trouble is the owners─which for Oto the Cured meant Zanki Kiguchi, and for the Garland means Rinne Higaki.”

“Hermit Magus.”

A voice came from the ceiling.

The voice, of course, belonging to Emonzaemon.

That man who would sooner die than answer to another─

Was answering to Princess Negative, from behind the ceiling.

“Your Highness─I’m surprised that you entrusted Rinne Higaki, of all people, with one of the Twelve Possessed. I suppose this is another of the tricks you’re always playing on the Schemer?”

“Make no mistake, I did not entrust it with Rinne Higaki─what would possess me to toss a hermit magus a priceless15 Mutant Blade? I’ll have you know I’m not too keen on her being the owner.”

“Priceless Mutant Blade, indeed─”

“Look, this isn’t just about the Garland. Most of the swords have been held by individuals who posed a nuisance to me. Which is perhaps what makes me so prepared to shower that nasty woman with praises, after rounding up so many of the Twelve Possessed I failed to capture.”

“I know I’ve given my report already, but please allow me to reiterate,” Emonzaemon said softly. “Hohoh Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa and effectively the leader of the ninja clan─has obtained Dokuto the Basilisk, whose venom is stronger than any of the Twelve Possessed.”

“Heard you the first time.” Princess Negative grinned and nodded. “The same Hohoh Maniwa that you failed to assassinate─right?”

“I have no excuse.”

“It’s fine. At the very least, the Maniwa have been distracted for a time─but I have to wonder. My plan did not originally include a scene16 in which the Maniwa get their hands on yet another of the Twelve Possessed─especially not Dokuto the Basilisk. But since when has anything gone according to plan? I’d rather not imagine Hohoh with a Mutant Blade. After my failure to foresee the betrayal of the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi, and the advent of that monster of a genius, Nanami Yasuri, I assumed the worst of my miscalculations17 were behind me…but it would seem that I’ve made yet another blunder.18 I cannot claim to fathom─whether the union of Hohoh Maniwa and Dokuto the Basilisk will prove bad luck, or the worst luck possible.”19

“There’s Dokuto the Basilisk, in the hands of Hohoh Maniwa. And after that there’s our sword─Ento the Bead.”

“Yes. With the help of which you took down Oshidori Maniwa. Well. I haven’t fired the thing myself, but it has turned out to be a very useful weapon. Unbelievable.”

“Should the Schemer be successful in capturing Seito the Garland─all twelve of the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki will finally share the stage.”

“All twelve…”

Zetto the Leveler. Zanto the Razor. Sento the Legion.

Hakuto the Whisper. Zokuto the Armor. Soto the Twin.

Akuto the Eel. Bito the Sundial. Oto the Cured.

Seito the Garland. Dokuto the Basilisk. Ento the Bead.

Masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki─the Twelve Possessed.

“Indeed. Exactly. Like you say, the time is finally upon us─although it took us quite a while to get here.”

“Which means your cherished dream has nearly met fruition─”

“Whoa, whoa. The walls have ears just as the paper doors have eyes. How can we be certain someone isn’t eavesdropping? Quit speaking so carelessly, Emonzaemon─you almost make it sound like I’m the direct descendant of the legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki, who reigned over the Age of Warring States, and that’s why I know all about the Twelve Possessed, allowing me to always stay a step ahead of that nasty woman.”

Thus spoke Princess Negative.

She snapped open her metal fan─and laughed derisively.

“None of that is true, of course, so please refrain from saying so.”

“…Certainly.” Emonzaemon nodded behind the ceiling. “Your Highness has no relation whatsoever to Kiki Shikizaki. Please forgive me if my remark was misleading.”

“This is why they call me Princess Negative─for I reject all other aspects of myself entirely. I have no history or ancestry─okay? I even reject my cherished dreams, whether they bear fruit or otherwise.”

“…”

“That said, don’t think that I like twiddling my thumbs20 while the Maniwa meet their goals and the Schemer realizes her ambitions. Seito the Garland and Rinne Higaki ought to hold them off a while longer. The Schemer and the Kyotoryu will surely stop once they reach the land of Oh.21 Until then, I will continue preparations here, as best I can. Ideally─the Schemer and the Kyotoryu will drub out22 the last two of the Maniwa for me. They’re bound to make a move against the Schemer any day now.”

“Inevitably. They are ninjas, after all.”

“That argument has weight,23 coming from you, truly. However─we must keep our eyes on the prize. I hate to ask you this, Emonzaemon, but would you go after the Maniwa again for me?”

“You mean─assassinate them?”

“No, but now that Hohoh Maniwa has Dokuto the Basilisk, those scenes will need to be rewritten yet again. We wouldn’t want to startle him…depending on the circumstances. I suppose, at the end of the day, he’ll have to die regardless─”

“What about the other boss?”

“Hm? What was his name again?”

“Pengin Maniwa.”

“Ah yes…I’ll leave him up to you. I don’t know anything about him, but at this point what’s another middling boss, dead or alive? Anyway, if the Maniwa are planning to confront the Schemer, the odds are high they’re heading for Hyakkeijo in Oshu. Alright, catch up with them before they have a chance to make a move.”

“Will do.”

“Hold on.”

Princess Negative had something else to tell her henchman in the ceiling.

“Entirely unrelated, something else is bothering me─you can take care of this afterwards, but I’d like for you to look into it personally.”24

“Huh? What is it?”

“It happened when the Schemer and the Kyotoryu were visiting these chambers. When Shichika heard me tell them where to find Seito the Garland, the strangest look came over him.”

The whereabouts of Seito the Garland.

Hyakkeijo in Oshu.

The former site of Hida Castle─once home to Takahito Hida, Mastermind of the Rebellion and Kaoyaku of Oshu.

“Perhaps you couldn’t tell behind the ceiling? He didn’t seem to react to ‘Rinne Higaki’ or ‘Hermit Magus,’ but either ‘Hyakkeijo’ or ‘Oshu’ tripped him up─regardless, he started acting strangely after that.”

“…How about the Schemer?”

“No, she was the same nasty woman as always─though perhaps I’m imagining things.”

“I can’t say…I noticed anything strange about the Kyotoryu.”

“No?”

“Do you mean─he seemed perturbed?”25

“Not so much perturbed, as pretending not to be perturbed─Shichika spent what, like twenty years marooned on Haphazard Island? This has to be his first time visiting Oshu.”

“His father, Mutsue Yasuri, was Hero of the Rebellion─is there a chance he simply recognized the name from stories he heard as a child?”

“Sure, but none of that explains why that nasty woman hasn’t visited Oshu before─how is that possible? Unlike me, her work takes her all over the nation… How come she hasn’t made it once to Oshu? Wouldn’t you say that it’s among the places that the Grand Commander of Arms should be familiar with?”

“It’s more than possible. I’m sure that Oshu is by no means the only place the Schemer hasn’t visited. It just so happens to be on the list of places that she hasn’t been─regardless of whether going would behoove her.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Nevertheless,” the Princess firmly stated, “I have no choice but to reject such a bland26 interpretation─sending you on a fool’s errand isn’t such a bad idea, as far as plots go, anyway. Well, then. Go figure out whatever link there is between Shichika Yasuri and Hyakkeijo─or between Togame the Schemer and Hyakkeijo. I’ll be waiting.”

■　■

The two she-devils of the Owari Bakufu.

Real names and origins unknown.

Princess Negative and the Schemer.

Whose showdown─was not so many days away.

1 殉職 JUNSHOKU “professional martyrdom”

2 街道 KAIDŌ “avenue road” major route

3 性格破綻者 SEIKAKU HATANSHA “broken personalities”

4 三度あいまみえん MITABI AI MAMIEN “there will be no third confrontation”

5 最期 SAIGO final (moments); end of life

6 まみえた MAMIETA having seen in person formal or, in this case, ironic and dismissive

7 規約 KIYAKU terms of use; rules

8 苦笑 KUSHŌ “bitter smile”

9 おずおずと おどおどと OZU OZU TO ODO ODO TO onomatopoeia for skittishness, anxiousness

10 道行 MICHIYUKI travel scene in traditional Japanese theater

11 洋装仮面 YŌSŌ KAMEN “Western-Clothes Mask”

12 託す TAKUSU entrust

13 遺物 異物 IBUTSU IBUTSU “bequeathed object” remains “foreign object” contaminant

14 けしかけていたら KESHI KAKETE ITARA had (she) loosed upon, ordered to attack

15 大事 DAIJI “big deal” important

16 台本 DAIHON scripted story

17 計算違い KEISAN CHIGAI “erroneous computation”

18 手違い TE CHIGAI “wrong hand”

19 凶 大凶 KYŌ DAIKYŌ misfortune great misfortune

20 指をくわえて YUBI WO KUWAETE “with a finger in one’s mouth”

21 奥羽 ŌU historic region comprising Mutsu (home to 奥州 ŌSHŪ Oshu) and Dewa

22 打破 DAHA “hit-break”

23 説得力 SETTOKU RYOKU “power to persuade”

24 直々に JIKIJIKI NI directly

25 動揺 DŌYŌ shaken

26 普通 FUTSŪ normal

27 終局 SHŪKYOKU close, conclusion

■　■

Slight in stature, looking half as tall as Shichika.

Long black hair tied back at her neck.

A girl with perfect posture.

Rinne Higaki─said they could have it.

■　■

The place where those who joined1 the rebel army, and those who had not joined but were connected to the ones who had, as well as those who merely were suspected of doing so, were mercilessly executed─in sanctioned genocide.2

The place where once there stood the brash and brilliant grandiosity3 of Hida Castle, where the leader of the rebel army, Takahito Hida, resided with his family─though it had long since been reduced to ash.

Hyakkeijo.

Three days had passed since Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu, visited the site alongside Togame the Schemer─

And there the two remained.

Nothing to be done.

This girl, Rinne Higaki, sitting before them on a little boulder, could not possibly have been too comfortable.

In one hand─Higaki held a carafe of sake.

From which she drank without a cup.

─Strange.

Déjà vu4─thought Shichika.

Noticing the concerned face he was making, Higaki tilted her neck quizzically.

“What’s up, Yasuri?” she asked. “You seem bored.”5

“Bored… I mean, yeah, I am bored.”

He really was.

Togame was perhaps another story─but Shichika was bored out of his skull.

“Wait, though…Higaki. All that aside, I gotta ask you─”

“Oh, I know─don’t even bother finishing. You’re wondering what’s up with me. What’s the story with this Rinne Higaki character?”

Higaki said this with a grin.

“Hate to break it to you─but the details of my backstory have nothing to do with you. Backstory…such an impersonal6 word. The story behind your back7…what’s that supposed to mean? Right, Yasuri? My existence, properly speaking, is of no use to you─for that matter, to either of you. The only thing that you─or either of you care about is the Mutant Blade of Kiki Shikizaki that I have. You’re here for Seito the Garland. Yes?”

“…Well, yeah,” admitted Shichika. “But this time around, Togame is taking care of all of that─forcing me to sit here with my thoughts. Togame brought this up last month─thinking is easy, but not thinking is evidently something that not everyone can handle. Which is why an ordinary guy like me is stuck here with my thoughts.”

“Really. What’s on your mind?”

Higaki wore an impudent8 expression.

An unlikely expression for a girl─but even from that face she made.

Shichika got déjà vu.

Indeed, almost as if─

“Hey, Higaki, I know you said that it was nice to meet me─”

Shichika spoke frankly, not mincing words.

“But have we met somewhere before?”

“Nope.”

For three days.

From the moment Higaki miraculously appeared in the field before them, and ever since, this thought had stayed with Shichika─at long last he had summoned the resolve to ask her, but Higaki shot him down like it was nothing, rejecting the idea outright.

“Remember, I’m a hermit magus─I basically keep my distance from the world. And by keep my distance, I mean cut myself off, severing all ties and connections─I’m what you might call ‘free-floating.’9 Which means the odds that you and I have met at some earlier date are less than zero. No chance we even passed each other on the wayside without knowing.”

“Y-Yeah, but─”

Déjà vu.

This feeling had been with Shichika since they met.

Like reuniting─with someone from his past.

And by no stretch of the imagination was this reunion happy─

“I know you from somewhere─I think,” Shichika said.

Despite his hasty qualification.

The first part of the statement had the stubborn nature of a fact.

“I’m pretty sure we’ve met somewhere before.”

“Listen, Yasuri. Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”

Higaki struck an inciting10 tone─

Suggesting insight11 on the situation.

Perhaps such insight should not come as a surprise, since after all she had declared herself to be a hermit magus.

“Yeah, I mean…I figured it was déjà vu─”

“Déjà vu? Whoa. You know some fancy words─but you’re wrong, Yasuri. If this déjà vu you speak of involves some kind of mental misperception, where something that you’re sure you’ve never done starts feeling like you’ve done it once before─then this eerie feeling that you have about me is not déjà vu after all.”

An eerie feeling, but not déjà vu.

Higaki spoke like this was overwhelmingly self-evident, at least to her.

“I am a legitimate perception─based on your legitimate memories.”

“Legit…”

“Yes. Unequivocally.12 Keheheh!”

Higaki laughed out loud.

What a weird laugh, thought Shichika.

Almost like someone─who knew not how to laugh, but laughed like crazy all the same.

“Remember what I said when we first met? ‘So that’s how I appear to you?’─please, remind me. How exactly do I appear to you?”

“…You look like a girl.”

Though her personality be far from girlish.

“A girl, with black hair. And also─somehow, as you sit there chugging sake, looking aloof, your posture is weirdly perfect. Something in the way you hold yourself feels too familiar, like I’ve seen it somewhere else before─”

“Sure you have,” acknowledged Higaki. “I’m a projection of your memory.”

“…”

“The fact that I appear that way means only that, in your specific case, I happen to embody that kind of a person─get it, Yasuri?”

This girl who called herself a hermit magus.

Rinne Higaki─gave Shichika an unpleasant sidelong glance.13

“I am a hermit magus.”

“Hermit magus…”

“I am both everyone and no one.”

She made these otherworldly, fantastical statements─sound matter of fact.

“Through me, people can gaze into their memories─hence what makes me a hermit magus. However present, I am not of this world.”

“My memories…”

“Well now, do you remember? Does any of this jog your memory? Can you pinpoint the experience─the moment when you saw me, as you see me now, creating this perception?”

“Ah.”

As a matter of fact─after so much coaxing.

Shichika─saw the light.14

Of course─it was the sort of thing he should have realized without having things spelled out for him so plainly.

He hardly needed a reminder.

Rinne Higaki.

This figure of a girl.

For Shichika, the memory was unforgettable.

He couldn’t help recalling Konayuki Itezora─whom he had met in Ezo, on Mt. Odori.

That clan of monstrous strength.

A family of monstrous strength unparalleled.

That naive and innocent girl, who gave Shichika the first X on his scorecard.

Owner of Soto the Twin, the heaviest sword in existence.

Konayuki Itezora.

But that black hair─and that hairstyle.

He needed no reminder.

He should have noticed this the second that he saw her─from its color to the way she tied it back, this was unmistakably the hair of Nanami Yasuri, his older sister.

Owner of Akuto the Eel, the most wicked sword in all the land.

Nanami Yasuri.

In which case─that thoroughly15 perfect posture, which made such a strong impression, must have come from the Twelfth Master of the Heartland School, Zanki Kiguchi, whom he battled just last month.

The owner of Oto the Cured, that sword following the most righteous of all paths.

Zanki Kiguchi.

“…”

Konayuki Itezora.

Nanami Yasuri.

Zanki Kiguchi.

What these three shared was all too clear.

The greatest common factor being painfully apparent.

All three of them─though doing so in their own way, had defeated Shichika.

“I said that you could gaze into your memory,” said Higaki. “In other words, I am a manifestation of your failings16─when people recall how they acted in the past, they tend to make convenient changes to the details. But not when you observe the past through me. From the look on your face, it would appear I’m helping you relive some not-so-pleasant memories…”

This reunion─being anything but happy.

After all.

Though it may come in many forms, no memory could be more bitter, for a creature of the battlefield17 like Shichika, than defeat.

Nay, this troubled him not only as a warrior.

To Shichika─defeat was tantamount to an act of insubordination towards his owner, Togame the Schemer.

“Makes sense.”

Come to think of it, this even explained the eerily familiar way Higaki drank her sake.

Guzzling it down with abandon.

It had to be a projection of the owner of Sento the Legion, Meisai Tsuruga, whom he had fought at Triad Shrine in Izumo.

Meisai Tsuruga.

Strictly speaking, Meisai had not defeated Shichika─though looking back on it, his memory of the experience was extremely bitter.

Just shy of─perhaps even surpassing the other three.

Bitter.

As well as painful.

“In that case─it makes total sense why I would feel so crummy, when I’m only standing here across from you. Seeing you triggers awful memories.”

“Not so much awful memories as regrets. I might even call it guilt─but for the record, understand that I’m not forcing you to do this. I’m not doing anything at all─you’re projecting all of this onto me, on your own.”

“Really? Uh, you mean…you’re not using some kind of hermit magic?”18

“Nope. And I couldn’t if I tried,” Higaki overshared.19 “Stop treating me like I’m human. I’m a hermit magus, don’t you forget it.”

“But…”

What about eternal life and youth?

What about ethereal powers?20

What about flying through the sky─the term “hermit magus” conjured all kinds of mystical abilities defying reason.21

Known collectively as hermit magic.

Togame the Schemer and Princess Negative in Owari─had both mentioned as much.

However.

“This is yet another way you people have projected your experience on me…on us. Eternal life and youth? Ethereal powers? Flying through the sky? Nothing more than broken dreams─which translate into personal failings. What is a hermit─if not a mirror into the soul?”

“Mirror?”

“A magical mirror, made to display the truth. Hey, Yasuri. Do you know a fairy tale from overseas that goes like this? Once upon a time there lived a queen─and this queen asks her mirror a question. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? The queen is hoping that the answer would be her, but the mirror gives a different name, the name of someone who the queen absolutely despises… What do you think of that, Yasuri? You think a mirror can tell you that sort of thing?”

“Hard to say─mirrors can’t talk.”

“Exactly. The answer wasn’t coming from the mirror─it was no more than the queen’s inmost self22 responding to her vanity. That’s how it works. Standing before me, Rinne Higaki, nobody is able to look away.”

“But it’s not like I hate Konayuki, or sis, or Kiguchi, or Meisai. Not at all.”

“Konayuki? Sis? Kiguchi? Meisai? Are you referring to the manifestation of your failings, having risen to the surface where you can view it plainly?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know─you’re basically a composite of the four of them.”

“I’m not acting. I really don’t know. I have no way of knowing how I look to you─I may be a projection of your memories, but that doesn’t mean that I can read them. Telepathy is for mortals─I am a hermit magus, far beyond the mortal realm.”

“For a hermit magus…you sure seem short on superpowers.”

Everything─was in the eye of the beholder.

Her form and her comportment.

All a matter of how Shichika perceived them─Higaki was doing nothing.

“Exactly. I’m doing nothing. Not a thing. And that’s what makes me a hermit magus, Yasuri. You humans are the ones who feel the need to do things, to mess with23 things─I’m still a rookie,24 far as hermit magi go. I haven’t lived for such a very long time, you see. But one of the few things I’m proud of is that I’ve done absolutely nothing my whole life.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

From the looks of it, she was maybe ten years old.

But even this was all about how she appeared to Shichika─irrelevant to the actual appearance of Rinne Higaki.

Indeed.

Rinne Higaki had no actual appearance.

She was a hermit magus.

No backstory─no story behind her back.

“About three hundred. Or I guess three hundred and fifty, counting my time as a human,” Higaki answered nonchalantly.

But then.

She never spoke with any kind of gravitas.

Hence every statement sounded casual.

“Then at some point─however many years ago, I received Seito the Garland from Kiki Shikizaki, the man himself, and became its owner.”

“Is it really fair to call yourself the owner of Seito the Garland?” Shichika took issue with Higaki’s choice of words. “I’m amazed to hear that you received it from the man himself─but if you’re the owner of the Garland, why aren’t you carrying it?”25

Rinne Higaki, perched atop her boulder.

Armed neither with Seito the Garland─nor with any other kind of weapon.

Completely emptyhanded.

Just like Shichika.

“Why wouldn’t you keep the Garland with you? Most of the other owners of the Twelve Possessed I’ve met so far refused to let their swords out of their sight.”

Komori Maniwa, who hid Zetto the Leveler in his belly.

Ginkaku Uneri, who slept with Zanto the Razor safely at his hip.

Ditto Zanki Kiguchi.

“But you?”

“I already told you─doing nothing is my game. That sword would only be a nuisance to me. Though I couldn’t exactly toss the thing, when it was given to me by a friend─so I figured doing what I did was the best bet.”

Higaki’s voice was cool26 and unperturbed.

Shichika could only answer this frivolity with silence.

─Four days earlier.

Togame the Schemer, though caught off-guard by the sudden appearance of this hermit magus─nevertheless commenced diplomacy with all her usual tenacity.

Almost immediately, Rinne Higaki interrupted.

“Huh? You’re saying you guys want Seito the Garland? Ah, alright. You can have it. It’s yours. Go ahead and take it.”

Then added this:

“You’ll find it buried over there─have fun digging it up. It’s probably, what, a hundred feet27 underground? Of course you’ll have to dig it up yourself, Togame.”

She made it sound like a walk in the park.

…

Meanwhile, Togame the Schemer was a short distance away from them─digging in the spot where Rinne Higaki said she buried Seito the Garland─now for three days straight, using the trowel28 Higaki had lent her.

Needless to say, Togame had not hit paydirt.

So she kept on digging.

“If it was me…” Shichika said.

Addressing Higaki.

His tone acerbic.

“If it was me, I could have dug down a hundred feet in a day, or two days max─why make Togame dig it up herself? Why did you have to tack on the dumb condition that I’m not allowed to help her?”

“From the sound of things, Togame is a little too dependent on your aid─some physical exertion now and then would do her good.”

“Physical exertion? That’s every day for her. She’s nearly died a bunch of times since we’ve been traveling together.”

“I’m sure. And that’s exactly why I’m teasing her─you see, in her eyes, that’s the sort of person I appear to be.”

“Huh?” Shichika was baffled by this statement from Higaki. “What the heck─are you saying your appearance borrows from her memory too?”

“You were together when you saw me, so that’s the way it goes. My appearance and mannerisms come from your memory, Yasuri─but my personality is derived from hers.”

Derived.

From the memory of Togame the Schemer.

From the failings of Togame the Schemer.

“Does Togame have any failings, though?” asked Shichika. “All I can think of is Princess Negative, but I’m not sure that she sees her as a failing, so much as hates her guts─”

“No one is without some kind of failing, or memory which they are loath to recollect. Including you and Togame, and even this Princess Negative… Let me be clear. If you were to take pity on Togame and help out with her little excavation project,29 our deal is off─I will only allow you to have Seito the Garland if Togame digs the sword up on her own.”

“No need for the reminder.”

Hearing this, Higaki laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“Sure, sure─I’m sure she’ll grin and bear it, for the sake of the Yanari Shogun, for the sake of the Owari Bakufu, and for the sake of the nation.”

“…”

For the sake of the nation.

Higaki, Hermit Magus, could not have possibly believed such drivel─that said, although she may have been a projection of Togame’s memories, she could not read her mind, and as such had no access to her true intentions.

All the same, she spoke as if she saw right through her.

Perhaps that was what made Higaki a hermit magus.

Though Shichika also suspected she was just faking it.

“Then again…” she said, like she had thought of something. “Thinking it over, it’s no fair that Togame has a job to do while you sit here bored out of your mind─so tell me, Yasuri, am I correct you won the swords from all the other owners of the Twelve Possessed by battling them head-on?”

“For the most part… I mean, there’s been a couple situations where head-on might not be the best way to describe it, but basically that’s how it’s been so far.”

“In that case, would you like to battle me?”

Higaki pointed at her chest.

“I may not know any hermit magic─but I know a few martial tricks.”30

“If I beat you, will you give us Seito the Garland?”

“Please. I’m not about to alter our conditions─this time around, Togame will be capturing the Mutant Blade on her own. You’re only fighting me as an amusement, to kill some time, for no reason and no purpose whatsoever.”

Responding to this impudent remark, Shichika said, “Why should I fight you, if it’s not for any reason or purpose? In that case, why bother?”

“Why bother?” Higaki laughed. “I should be asking you the same thing─what are you fighting for?”

“…”

Once─Meisai Tsuruga had asked him the same thing.

Shichika had told her he was fighting for Togame.

None of that had changed.

But meanwhile─

That ninja, Kuizame Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, who had been listening in on his exchange with Meisai─offered the following:

What are you fighting for?

If you have to be asking such questions, don’t even bother fighting─

Nobody has time for your philosophy!

Don’t be ridiculous!─

That is what the ninja had to say.

“Yasuri. As a hermit magus defying reason…” Higaki─set down the carafe and stood from her seat on the boulder. “I’m of the opinion that it’s time you faced31 your failings.”

■　■

Shichika checked in on Togame, to see the hole that she was making with her trowel. Most of the time she shooed him off, saying having him just stand there, doing nothing, sapped her productivity.32 As such, if Shichika wanted to talk with Togame, he had to catch her on one of her breaks.

The hole was getting pretty deep─but climbing the rope ladder from its depths, which as of yet were shy of a hundred feet, Togame was miserably dirty.

Her robes, which should have been so brash and brilliant, were smeared with dirt and mud, far too much for even the Schemer to play off as a fashion statement.

Her white hair, too, was blackened by the soil.

“Hmph…”

Nevertheless, she did not whine one bit.

She gulped down water from the bamboo flask33 that Shichika had brought her.

“Wish you could have burgled Higaki’s carafe for me─I sure could use a drink right about now. It feels like I’m digging through potsherds─like at Lake Fuyo, I’m working through some serious junk.”

“Junk?”

Now that she mentioned it, in their search for information about Kiki Shikizaki, they had conducted another excavation at Lake Fuyo, the Level One Disaster Area─though on that occasion, Shichika had been asked to do the digging on his own.

The tables had turned.

Togame was doing all the work─while Shichika just watched.

Though actually, she wouldn’t even let him watch her work.

“Well done, Shichika─sounds like you’ve uncovered some useful information. Failings, huh. I suppose it could be stranger than that.”

“You think…” said Shichika, peering down into the hole Togame had been digging. “You think Seito the Garland is really buried there?”

“Do you feel the lifeforce?”

When Shichika beheld one of the Twelve Possessed─he felt an inexplicable vibration.

Thus far, he had oft relied on this lifeforce to “appraise” potential Mutant Blades.

And yet─the lifeforce test was definitely not foolproof.

“If it is buried down there, I’m not sure I can feel it. Did she say a hundred feet? Buried that deep in the ground─”

“Well, we have no choice but to believe the hermit,” said Togame.

Though she refrained from whining─her choice of words betrayed her exhaustion.

“Another thing, Shichika. Are you planning to fight Higaki?”

“Oh. I’m not really interested in fighting for no reason─but it’s hard for me to sit there doing nothing, while you’re working over here like crazy. Same way as our pointless chat was anything but pointless, there’s surely something to be gained from fighting her. End of the day, fighting is the only thing I’m good at, so I guess I’ll fight,” answered Shichika. “Unless you stop me.”

“I have no plans of stopping you,” Togame said, massaging her arms. “Have fun. It’s bound to be constructive.34 Fighting a hermit magus─I’m sure you’ll learn all sorts of helpful things from that experience, Shichika.”

“Alright.”

“Think of it this way─we have it pretty easy,35 capturing one of the Twelve Possessed by just digging a hole. You know, it makes me wonder how much that nasty woman knew about these circumstances in advance. If she was hoping to get on my nerves, this was quite a shrewd move.”

“Princess Negative─oh, wait.”

What Togame had said made Shichika remember something, so he told her.

“If Higaki is for real, then on the outside she’s a manifestation of my failings─while on the inside, she’s made up of yours.”

Konayuki Itezora. Nanami Yasuri. Zanki Kiguchi.

And Meisai Tsuruga.

Higaki’s outward appearance drew upon these four.

While on the inside.

“Does Higaki’s arrogant personality remind you of someone in your life? Doesn’t seem like Princess Negative. Or Emonzaemon… Only other person I can think of would be Hohoh Maniwa, but it doesn’t seem like it’s him either.”

“Heh.”

A chuckle.

Togame the Schemer chuckled dejectedly.

“Plain enough. I don’t need you to talk it through, and I don’t need to think it over either─Higaki is the spitting image of the person who has given me a harder time than anyone in my entire life. Her manner of speaking, that self-important delivery. Goofing around, like nothing matters─but most of all, the way she forced me to do manual labor. Shichika, she acts exactly like the man I dislike more than anyone who ever lived.”

“Who?”

“Takahito Hida,” said Togame. “She’s a dead ringer36 for my father.”

1 加担 KATAN “shoulder the load”

2 合法的に虐殺 GŌHŌTEKI NI GYAKUSATSU massacred legally

3 巨城 KYOJŌ giant castle

4 既視感 KISHIKAN “feeling you have seen before”

5 暇 HIMA idle

6 うすら寒い USURA SAMUI chilly

7 正しい体 TADASHII KARADA correct body (unpacks 正体 SHŌTAI true nature, “backstory”)

8 人を食った HITO WO KUTTA “eaten a person” arrogant

9 無縁 MUEN (colloquial) unrelated; also, absence of 縁 EN ties (as in the Buddhist concept)

10 諭す SATOSU admonish

11 悟った SATOTTA enlightened plays with sounds of 諭す SATOSU

12 銓にかけるまでもなく SEN NI KAKERU MADE MO NAKU “no need to place on the scales” plays on 誠刀 銓 SEITŌ HAKARI Seito the Garland

13 流し目 NAGASHIME “drifting eyes” flirtatious connotations

14 得心 TOKUSHIN “gain heart” be convinced

15 一貫した IKKAN SHITA consistently

16 苦手意識 NIGATE ISHIKI insecurity about someone or something 苦い NIGAI bitter

17 戦う者 TATAKAU MONO fighter (by nature)

18 仙術 SENJUTSU the tricks of a mountain ascetic

19 身も蓋もない MI MO FUTA MO NAI “no container or lid” blunt (remark)

20 神通力 JINTSŪRIKI “divine penetrating power”

21 人知 JINCHI “human understanding”

22 心根 KOKORONE “heart-roots”

23 しでかす SHIDEKASU undertake, grandly and usu. needlessly

24 若造 WAKAZŌ “young build” youth

25 身に帯びて MI NI OBITE “have wrapped around the body” (as with the tie string of a scabbard)

26 恬として TEN TOSHITE indifferent

27 十丈 JŪ JŌ ten jo, an archaic unit (1 jo = approx. 10 ft.)

28 移植ごて ISHOKU GOTE small shovel used for gardening

29 発掘作業 HAKKUTSU SAGYŌ (archaeological) “dig”

30 戦術 SENJUTSU tactics homophonous with 仙術 SENJUTSU hermit magic

31 向き合う MUKI AU “turn and meet” confront

32 作業効率 SAGYŌ KŌRITSU “operational efficiency” sounds anachronistic in the original too

33 水筒 SUITŌ “water tube” 筒 TSUTSU signifies a section of bamboo

34 有益 YŪEKI beneficial, fruitful

35 安いもの YASUI MONO “cheap thing” accomplished with little effort

36 瓜二つ URI FUTATSU “like two gourds” peas in a pod

■　■

They hadn’t seen Higaki sleep a wink.

She just sat there on her boulder.

Doing nothing─sitting up all night.

Perhaps that was what made Higaki a hermit magus.

Literally doing nothing, sleep included.

And now─the two of them were facing off.

Since Togame the Schemer had been shoveling away since waking up, she was unable to play her usual role of referee─but there would be no refereeing.

This was for fun.

Since they were only killing time.

“I will say this, though,” Higaki said, shaking her arms and legs in some kind of preliminary stretch. “The failings I embody for you keep to the surface─I have none of the monstrous strength of, what’s her name, Konayuki Itezora, nor do I have any of the genius of your dear sister, and nothing of the seriousness of your buddy Zanki Kiguchi.”

“I mean, if you had even a shred of the seriousness Kiguchi has, I doubt we would have wound up in this situation.”

The arrogant personality─of Takahito Hida.

The personality of Togame’s father.

Shichika had a difficult time believing that a man of such high standing, the leader of an army, could have such a flippant personality.

Unlikely enough for a girl.

But absurd for a daimyo.

“Get it, Yasuri?”

Higaki continued.

“I’m disproportionately weaker than you─remember that, once we begin.”

“Weak…” Having a hard time grasping what Higaki meant by this, Shichika nodded cautiously.1 “What’s that, a frontloaded excuse for losing?”

“I’m afraid not─you’re unable to beat someone weaker than you. Winning is off the table. Do I make myself clear?”

“…”

“Alright─come and get it, as they say, but watch out, ’cause I’m coming to getcha!”

Sticking a fork into2 their conversation.

Rinne Higaki, out of nowhere, made a run at Shichika.

As before─Higaki was unarmed.

To wit, she had not so much as a gimlet.3

As should come as no surprise, Shichika was also emptyhanded─having doffed his armguards, as was his practice, the Master of the Kyotoryu was ready to rumble.

And so─Shichika Yasuri versus Rinne Higaki.

Swordplay betwixt two parties lacking swords!

“Kyotoryu─Yuri!”

Shichika spun from the hips, countering Higaki with a spinning kick─except the second that he moved, he knew that his defeat was certain.

This bum-rush4 from Higaki.

Had been a ruse.

Her way of getting Shichika to fight back─an inelegant attack, intent on inducing an inelegant interception.

Higaki threw an elbow up against Shichika’s kicking leg.

Tipping him off-balance.

“Whah…”

He was sure he knew where she was aiming next, but Higaki didn’t follow through. Instead she pulled away, taking one step back.

Shichika quickly recovered his balance.

Her counterattack had caught him unawares, but this proved Higaki was not lying about the similarities only being skin deep─if she had shared the monstrous strength of Konayuki Itezora, her rising arm could easily have blown his leg to pieces.

She was physically fit, to be sure─but not to any unbelievable degree.5 Her strength was well within the confines of believability.

Knowing that much was enough.

No monstrous strength, and no genius.

Though he would have loved her to be serious─

“Kyotoryu─Bara!”

Shichika came at Higaki with a front kick.

Since she looked half as tall as him, he had to be choosy with his attacks─had to bear in mind that grappling moves and throw moves would not serve him in this fight.

That left strikes.

Which should be plenty!

“Whoa, nice one.”

Higaki calmly ducked his front kick─and when Shichika bore down on her, she summarily blocked, dodged, or brushed away the blades of his hands and feet.

You guessed it─

She saw his attacks coming.

“Ugh…”

He remembered.

A month earlier─in his fourth fight against Zanki Kiguchi.

The fight in which neither of them bore a sword─though Shichika was beginning to realize what made this fight and that fight completely different.

Something─wasn’t clicking.6

Like there was sand between his teeth7─

“Kyotoryu─Shichika Hachiretsu!”

Since it would appear that he was getting nowhere,8 Shichika resorted to the Last Fatal Orchid of the Kyotoryu.

The Seven Fatal Orchids of the Kyotoryu.

Fatal Orchid One: Kyoka Suigetsu.

Fatal Orchid Two: Kacho Fugetsu.

Fatal Orchid Three: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fatal Orchid Four: Ryuryoku Kako.

Fatal Orchid Five: Hika Rakuyo.

Fatal Orchid Six: Kinjo Tenka.

Fatal Orchid Seven: Rakka Rozeki.

In the Last Fatal Orchid, Shichika Hachiretsu, he unleashed them simultaneously─though note that this was not “Shichika Hachiretsu Redux,” the updated sequence he had devised at Seiryoin Gokenji Temple in Tosa, after his fight against the genius Nanami Yasuri, but rather “Shichika Hachiretsu,” the classic form.

Flawed, perhaps─but more adaptable.

Not necessarily inferior to its flush-riveted update─however!

“Oops, oops.”

Hopping away.

Rinne Higaki created so much space between them there was no way Shichika Hachiretsu could reach her.

“Wha… Y-You─”

Shichika almost called her a cheat.

Granted, all that she had done was smartly retreat, so such a reproach would hardly have been fair─but this last move helped Shichika to finally see the light.

Rinne Higaki.

Doesn’t care─about this fight at all.

Though inviting it upon herself─she’s barely even fighting.

“So sad, Yasuri. It seems that you have quite the inferiority complex towards your genius of a sister, but in the eyes of a lowly hermit such as myself, you’re a fine young specimen in your own right, a genius of the first degree─”

Dodging Shichika’s strikes, Higaki grinned.

“─On a scale from one to ten, where your strength index is at the top, I’m probably somewhere around seven. If you gave me everything you’ve got, I couldn’t even hold my own.”

“Then! How come you haven’t been torn to smithereens?!”

“Thing is, you’re splitting your ten-out-of-ten power down the middle, dividing it between offense and defense, so that your attacks are only half as strong. As a result─because I’m putting all my strength into my defense─you’re unable to break through my defenses. After all,” said Higaki, “Seito the Garland’s special characteristic─is self-awareness.”9

“What do you mean, the characteristic of the Garland?”

The hardest sword in all the world, Zetto the Leveler.

The sharpest sword in all the world, Zanto the Razor.

The most myriad sword in all the world, Sento the Legion.

The frailest sword in all the world, Hakuto the Whisper.

The toughest sword in all the world, Zokuto the Armor.

The heaviest sword in all the world, Soto the Twin.

The wickedest sword in all the world, Akuto the Eel.

The most humanoid10 sword in all the world, Bito the Sundial.

The most innocuous11 sword in all the world, Oto the Cured.

“The sincerest sword in all the world─verily so, indeed! And how could it be otherwise, with me as its owner?”

“Cut the crap! What makes you sincere?”12

“Whoa, whoa. Be careful with your accusations─that side of me comes from your darling Togame.”

“Dammit!”

Consider Zokuto the Armor.

Unparalleled in armor class.

No attack was capable of breaking through the Armor in and of itself─in an example of how defense can surpass offense in certain applications. And unlike Azekura, Higaki made no effort to convert this defense into offense─her modus operandi being exclusively defensive.13

Truly, no attack from Shichika had so much as marred Higaki.

The blades of his hand missed her entirely.

The blades of his feet slicing only air.

“I’m done!”

Thump.

Shichika gave up attacking Higaki and plopped down on the earth.

Sulking on the ground of Hyakkeijo.

“Cripes, this isn’t even a real fight! Enough of this stuff about confronting failings─I’m not here to help you finally get some exercise! I’d much rather be swinging a wooden sword at Kiguchi! You think it’s fun adding to my list of failings?”

“Sure do. There’s nothing I love more than teasing you.”

Higaki said this without a hint of shame.

“It’s interesting to hear you say you’re helping me to get some exercise, when I’m the one helping you kill time. Is that such a bad thing?”

As she spoke, Higaki dropped her guard─at ease, she sallied over to the little boulder and took her usual perch.

Then laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“You know, some people would learn a hard-won14 lesson from this kind of fight.”

“Yeah?”

“One ought to try and take a lesson from a fight,” Higaki said, pointing at Shichika. “You know, things like ‘Fighting is pointless,’ or ‘It’s not whether you win or lose.’ I heard Togame say our fight was bound to be constructive, but the experience of battle is inherently destructive. Even the constructive moments are unsettling. At this point you have spent close to a year fighting for Togame─but it would seem that you have failed to learn this on your own. Kind as I am, I decided I would teach you.”

“Next time, save it.” Shichika made no effort to conceal his displeasure. “Not like that hasn’t crossed my mind before─but we’ve got a job to do, and that gives fighting and success15 definite value.”

“Where do those words come from, you─or Togame?”

Higaki turned away.

Toward the hole Togame was digging─since by now she had dug several times her height, they could no longer see her.

Yet as if she could─Higaki gazed in her direction.

“Her too,” she said. “So hung up on fighting. It’s almost like─she sees life itself as some kind of a battle. What exactly is her motivation? I’m sure you know. Although you don’t agree with it.”

“…”

“You don’t agree with it, you merely sympathize.16 Isn’t that right?”

“No─this isn’t about sympathy.”

“You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you? It’s too bad,” Higaki said, oozing sarcasm. “As far as I can see, your feelings for her fail to qualify as love or romance.”

“You’ll pay…for saying that.”

Shichika found himself threatening Higaki─but she brushed it off like it was nothing.

“You can ignore me, I was only joking,” Higaki said. “If this sort of thing bothers you that much, when you hear what I really think about you, you’re probably going to faint─not like it’s my duty17 to inform you of such things.”

“You call yourself a hermit magus.”

Shichika stood up, moving sluggishly.

Though he had not received any blows from his opponent, and was not tired─his motions had one way or another become sluggish.

He was tuckered out.

“But honestly─who the hell are you?”

“Have you misunderstood me? You do realize that this, too, is merely an indication of the way that I appear to you. Where do you think this irritation that you feel towards me is coming from? It’s you. A manifestation of your failings─nothing more.”

“…”

“Still, though, the foolish honesty with which you accepted my offer and consented to have a face off shows that you have promise18 yet, my boy─compared to you, Togame is, how shall I say, rather intransigent, cunning even. Over there, digging like crazy, when her only interest is to stay as far away from me as possible.”

“Oh─”

Come to think of it.

Shichika had been the only one to interact significantly with Higaki.

A first among the owners of the Twelve Possessed.

“Yeah, but Togame didn’t find out that you’re only a projection of our failings until last night.”

“Because for her─it’s about personality. That’s how her failings manifest. Since yours take shape on the surface, it took a little extra time to notice. I reckon…she’ll probably keep on looking away like that forever. Turned away for as long as she lives.”

Which is one way to live a life, Higaki said, her tone of voice unchanged, flippant as ever. “Fact is─whatever else I might have told her, the second she heard me say ‘It’s buried over there,’ she knew exactly where to find the Garland. Instead of trying to dig it up herself like an honest fool, she should leave it to you.”

“You’re the one who said that was off-limits.”

“And she’s the one who’s following the rules. What’s stopping her from breaking the promise that she made with me?”

“Isn’t it honorable to honor promises?”

“Oh yes, and how she wants to be admired,” Higaki quipped sardonically. “She craves the admiration of her past self, or the admiration of her future self, or perhaps the admiration of the gods. Not for me to say─but in the end, she will have failed to overcome her failings. Because she has a guilty conscience, she will never break the rules.”

Higaki paused for effect.

As if to observe Shichika’s reaction.

“You see─she has forgotten the most important thing.”

“What?”

“I wonder. Although I cannot read her mind, I’m certain that she’s forgotten something of great importance. And you know what─she has no hopes of remembering it, either, as long as she does not confront her failings. Which would be fine, if it wasn’t something that she wanted desperately to recall─but still.”

Following suit with Shichika, Higaki stood.

Even standing, she was less than half as tall as Shichika.

Nevertheless.

He felt inexplicably19 intimidated.

Something in her gaze─made it feel like she was looking down at him.

“Hard to live a long life when you live like that. Given how much success means to her, I recognize that this is in the service of her goals, but isn’t the ultimate goal of any human being survival? What good’s success if you have to kill yourself to get there?”

“Life’s a small price to pay for reaching a goal. Don’t you think that’s an admirable and proper way to live? Or does being a hermit lead you to think otherwise?”

“I’m not too sure about that.” Higaki had herself a chuckle. “I never think of anything at all─if I appear to be, the two of you are doing the thinking.”

“…”

Insinuation.

Pretense.

Innuendo, mischief.

And she called herself a hermit magus?

Yet Shichika knew that on an overarching level, Higaki was not incorrect─the fact that everything she said stung so bad was evidence that she had struck a nerve.

“Here’s a good example, Yasuri.”

Higaki was still─looking away from Shichika.

Looking instead in the direction of the hole Togame was digging.

Or perhaps.

Was she looking in the direction of her sword, Seito the Garland?

The sincerest blade?

“For one person to reach her goal, how many other people’s goals must be stymied?”

“…”

“It’s not possible for everyone to meet their goals and live happily ever after─for one person to achieve happiness, a great many others will pay the price. Am I not stating the obvious here? Human beings survive only by sacrificing one another.”

“How do you mean? Togame isn’t after happiness. If anybody’s life is being sacrificed, it’s hers.”

“Which I believe to be precisely what Togame is the most averse to seeing─she knows that better than anyone. And while I cannot say for sure what she’s trying to achieve─I’m certain that it isn’t worth her sacrificing her own life, much less the lives of others.”

“But─”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Yasuri.”

Refusing to let Shichika object, Higaki doubled down.

“In hunting down the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki, have you not taken countless lives? Stymying the supreme human objective of survival?”

“…”

Komori Maniwa.

Ginkaku Uneri.

Meisai Tsuruga.

Hakuhei Sabi.

The slew of challengers he had killed off after becoming the Strongest in Japan.

And his own sister─Nanami Yasuri.

All dead─at his own hand.

“When you kill someone,” Higaki said, “you do realize they die, Yasuri. Though it would seem you’ve turned your head away from this elementary principle.20 And so has our dear Togame─she thinks she’s faced the facts, except her eyes are closed. The way I see it─you and her are both─lacking resolution.”

Higaki took a breath.

“The Garland gives a reading on the self─it’s like a scale, allowing you to gauge the balance of your deeds. Could you let Togame know? It seems like we’re not speaking.”

“Fine…”

Shichika nodded begrudgingly.

So the Garland was like a scale.

He pondered21 the meaning of this explanation.

In actuality─it was Rinne Higaki, Hermit Magus, who acted like a balance.

A scale weighing human behavior.

“I’ll let her know during her next break.”

“That would seem to be right now,” Higaki said, glancing in the direction of Togame. “At the moment, it would seem she’s out of energy and resting in the hole.”

■　■

When done involuntarily and repeatedly, this is a form of torture.

An example of how repetitive menial labor can drive a person crazy, though Togame the Schemer was not so weak in spirit as to be driven crazy by such a trifling matter.

Only her physical resources were limited.

As seen from her traversals22 of such inhospitable environments as Inaba Desert, Mt. Odori, and Lake Fuyo, she was able to withstand a decent trek, no weaker than the average person─but this didn’t mean that she was notably23 stronger than the average person either.

If tacticians deal in tactics, then the Schemer dealt exclusively in schemes. A strategist eschewing armaments of every stripe, able to fend off hardship and adversity by strategy alone─

She had never had a reason to temper her body.

In fact, it was important that she not.

Hence─

“Togame!”

The Schemer had collapsed in the hole.

Just as Rinne Higaki indicated.

Shichika leapt down into the hole without delay. Togame was unconscious; he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her body, trying to awaken her. It was quite a dangerous thing to do to someone who was unconscious, but as luck would have it─

“Mm.”

She came to.

“Ugh… Hey, Shichirin.”

“Uh, I think nickname’s run its course…are you okay?”

“Right. I must have fainted.”

Although she had lost consciousness─Togame had not let go of the trowel.

By now dirt covered her from head to toe, but nevertheless, she brushed the soil off her face and resumed her excavation.

“Whoa─let’s take a break.”

“It’s not time for my break yet.”

“Focus on the way you’re feeling, not the time. Don’t tell me you don’t know how.”

“Hmph…”

It was no use─Togame wasn’t listening. She stabbed her trowel in the dirt, scooped some up, and tossed it in the bucket beside her. When the bucket was full, she carried it up the rope ladder.

Then started again.

The same thing, over and over.

From the looks of it24─she had dug about fifty feet.

Halfway there.

Over the course of the morning, she had made remarkable progress as compared to the days before─perhaps she had grasped the finer points25 of hole digging.

Almost impressive─still.

Something had to give.

Her increased efficiency no more than a warning that she was working far too hard.

“Uh, Togame, I gotta ask you something important.”

“Ask me something?”

“Yeah, I need your advice.”

This was not about advice, of course.

But Shichika understood Togame─he knew that if he put it this way, she would stop working for at least as long as he was talking. While she probably guessed what Shichika was up to, she was not so mentally depleted as to ignore26 his clumsy attempts at connecting.27 She owed this to him, as his employer.

Her fatigue was merely physical.

Sore arms for sure, but likely sore all over.

Advice─

Considering the situation, it must involve Rinne Higaki.

“Like I said yesterday, Higaki and I had a face off─but let’s just say it was no contest.”28

“Huh? You mean you lost?”

“No, I wouldn’t say I lost…”

Togame frowned. She looked skeptical.

“Then again,” continued Shichika, “I wouldn’t say I won. It was no contest. Literally. She dodged everything I threw at her.”

Shichika gave her an unabridged account.

Including all the nonsense Higaki had spewed.

Togame looked a little bored, but she waited for Shichika to finish.

“Not sure I buy that,” she confessed. “All this self-awareness stuff aside, I don’t see how focusing exclusively on defense would make any difference─all she did was throw the fight.”

“I mean, as much as it got under my skin, I gotta say it was pretty effective. You can’t have a duel unless both sides agree─if one side throws the fight, the other side no longer has a way of winning.”

“I beg to differ,” said Togame. “Fundamentally, there’s a big hole in Higaki’s strategy of choice. If you can take aim at the hole, you will be able to plunder her defenses, regardless of how focused they may be.”

“A big hole?”

Higaki’s strategy of putting all her strength into defense.

The hermit magus lacking hermit magic.

What kind of a hole did her strategy have?

“If that’s the case, tell me what I gotta do─I know I didn’t lose exactly, but it feels like I lost and it’s getting me down. The way she says and does things is so aggravating29─I gotta get back at her, or I’ll never settle down.”

“Come on…use your head a little. Basically, she─”

Togame stopped midsentence─stopped moving entirely.

She had been about to tell him something, but now her lips were sealed.

She only narrowed her eyes─until finally.

“Right,” she said. “Right…that’s what it is. Or rather, what it means…”

“Huh?”

Togame’s mutterings made Shichika nervous─but she did not pay him any mind.

She picked up the trowel and stabbed it in the earth.

“Ugh─I can’t stand her personality.”

Still only fifty feet deep.

Or fifty feet shallow.

But then─the tip of her trowel dinged30 against something that could not be dirt.

“To-Togame?”

“Basically…” Togame smiled bitterly and spoke in an acid tone. “We’ve been tricked.”

1 曖昧な風 AIMAI NA FŪ in a vague manner

2 打ち切って UCHIKITTE cutting off (communications)

3 寸鉄 SUNTETSU small blade vs. 寸鉄人を刺す SUNTETSU HITO WO SASU “gimlet tongue”

4 突貫 TOKKAN (sudden) charge

5 常識を超える JŌSHIKI WO KOERU surpassing common sense

6 噛み合わない KAMI AWANAI failing to “bite each other,” as with intermeshing gears

7 砂でも噛んでいる SUNA DEMO KANDE IRU biting on something like sand

8 らちが明かない RACHI GA AKANAI “the horse fencing won’t open” idiom for a standstill

9 誠刀防衛 SEITŌ BŌEI “defense of the honest sword” pun on 正当防衛 SEITŌ BŌEI (lawful) self-defense

10 人的 JINTEKI human-like

11 無毒 MUDOKU “without poison”

12 誠実 SEIJITSU “honest and true”

13 専守防衛 SENSHU BŌEI security policy restricted to defense, e.g. in the Japanese constitution

14 得がたき EGATAKI “difficult to gain”

15 勝ち負け KACHI MAKE winning or losing

16 同調 同情 DŌCHŌ DŌJŌ “same tune” “same sentiment”

17 義理 GIRI (unwritten) job, responsibility

18 見所 MIDOKORO “something to see”

19 形容しがたい KEIYŌ SHIGATAI “hard to describe”

20 原理 GENRI “source reason”

21 噛み締める KAMI SHIMERU savor vs. 噛み合う KAMI AU intermesh

22 行脚 ANGYA “go on legs” pilgrimage

23 逸脱 ITSUDATSU deviate

24 目算 MOKUSAN visual estimation

25 こつ KOTSU “the hang of it” knack

26 無下にする MUGE NI SURU dismiss as meaningless

27 思いやり OMOI YARI considerateness

28 勝負にならなくて SHŌBU NI NARANAKUTE “did not amount to a battle”

29 むかつく MUKATSUKU upsetting, for the stomach or figuratively

30 がつり GATSURI onomatopoeia for striking a hard object or surface

■　■

After waiting an entire twenty-four hours, Togame the Schemer paid a visit to the so-called hermit magus, Rinne Higaki, owner of Seito the Garland.

As usual, or as to be expected, Higaki was perched atop her little boulder─though for whatever reason, she was blowing on a reed.1

Toot, toot.

When Higaki noticed Togame approaching, she stopped playing.

And tossed the reed into the wind.

“Hey there.” Higaki smiled broadly at Togame. “If it isn’t Togame─the Schemer. What happened to that hole that you were digging so devotedly?”

“Hah.”

Refusing to be the butt of Higaki’s joke─Togame snorted and sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the boulder.

At this point, no use worrying about her clothes getting dirty.

Having a wardrobe vast as hers, Togame was able to change into fresh clothes every day, so her current outfit was unsoiled as of yet─but over the past four days of her “excavation project,” she had grown considerably comfortable in the dirt.

“What happened to Yasuri? I don’t see him anywhere─there’s no place for a lug like him to hide in all of Hyakkeijo. Unless you buried him inside your hole?”

“I sent him to buy foodstuffs for us at the nearest village─though even Shichika probably realized I was just keeping him busy.”

With that.

Togame drew a certain something from her kimono.

A certain something.

First the hilt of a katana.

The hilt. And then the handguard.

And then─but that was it.

“Seito the Garland─I presume?” said Togame.

“Why ask me─when you can have Shichika use his sixth sense? You don’t need me to tell you what it is.”

Though after saying this─Higaki confirmed, “Yeah, that’s it.”

A swordless sword─only a hilt and handguard.

“Though you uncovered it much faster than expected─you could have dug for your whole life and never found the thing, Togame.”

“Hah. What was that about a hundred feet? Where the hell did that random number come from? It was only buried half as deep as that.”

“You expect me to remember that after three hundred years? So I was fifty feet off. Call it random, but I call that the margin of error.”

Higaki was feigning ignorance.

“Besides, if you had done things differently, Togame, you would never have found Seito the Garland─not a hundred feet down or even a thousand.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You realized something, didn’t you? If you had never had that realization─I doubt you would have found the Garland a mere fifty feet below the surface. On the other hand, if you had realized it immediately, you would have found it the instant your trowel sank into the earth.”

“Well. You sure have a way of making flights of fancy2 sound matter-of-fact─I bet you merely calculated3 how long it would take for me to suss out your game and buried Seito the Garland accordingly.”

“A reasonable assumption─but if that were the case, Togame, and you continued your excavation hellbent on antagonism─would you have had the mental space to realize that a sword like this, only a hilt and handguard, could be one of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki?”

“I doubt it,” Togame admitted begrudgingly. “But that’s where Shichika’s sixth sense comes into play.”

“This sixth sense of his allows him to be sure of what is not a Mutant Blade, but it does not allow him to be sure of whether something is─did he not say he was unsure of Zetto the Leveler being so?”

“That stupid boy4─of course he had to let that slip.”

“Don’t say such things. He is a fine young man─at least in my opinion,” Higuchi said nonchalantly. “As you are well aware, I am a manifestation of your failings and his combined. His failings are manifest almost exclusively in my exterior appearance, while on the inside, by which I mean my personality or constitution, I mostly comprise your failings, Togame─and what do you suppose that all this means in practice?”

“…”

“Because of his upbringing, you might assume Shichika to have had a harder time dealing with his father than his sister─but that has not been his experience. Perhaps he’s simple, or perhaps he’s just an imbecile─but he is not what you call maladjusted.”

“High praise.”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t say this to his face. I’m too much of a contrarian5 for that─how else would I have made it as a hermit?”

Higaki laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“In that sense, you’re something of a hermit in your own right, my dear Togame. You’re a bit more contrary than most─you’ve accused me of being calculating, but how could I have begun to guess when you would find Seito the Garland?”

“You bogged us down with all those riddles, incapacitating Shichika. I’d say you had a guess, alright. But now I understand,” Togame said, wielding the Garland─only a hilt and handguard, a sword without a blade. “Seito the Garland─encourages an analysis6 of the self.7 It slashes self-perceptions─testing the identity, enabling self-awareness. Hence why it has no blade─making it a swordless sword.”

“Precisely,”8 certified Higaki, with an exaggerated show of applause.

“It makes sense, thinking it over─storing a Mutant Blade under the ground is hardly what I’d call safekeeping, but if there’s no blade to keep safe, there’s no issue.”

“I find your way of working backwards9 disagreeable─though I suppose that’s just the way you are.”

“There’s that detestable personality,” Togame said, practically spitting out the words. “You sound exactly like10 him.”

“Like him? Oh, you mean my personality─as you are well aware, these failings you see in me are not the result of my reading your mind. Make no mistake─you’re seeing me this way entirely of your own accord. Understand? I have no clue who you mean by him. Would you mind clueing me in?”

“…”

“Relax. I’m a hermit magus. My lips are sealed11─I promise not to tell the world about your failings.”

“…I mean my father,” Togame finally said, after much deliberation.12 “I won’t tell you his name or divulge any more particulars─but to me, you sound exactly like him.”

“Is that right? Sounds like a bad dad.”

Though in a sense referring to herself, Higaki made it sound like someone else entirely.

Of course, this wasn’t actually about her.

Though even this─reminded Togame of him.

Togame’s father.

The Kaoyaku of Oshu, Takahito Hida.

A sore spot for Togame.

A great failing indeed.

And this failing─is what made Togame see Higaki in this manner.

“Well, is this father of yours alive? Judging by how robustly his personality has manifested, I gather he’s alive and kicking… Is your relationship antagonistic?”

“He’s dead, but he has never been an enemy of mine, in life or death,” replied Togame. “I might even go so far as to say that my father is my reason for living─certainly the reason for conducting my Sword Hunt for the Shikizaki blades. Antagonistic? Hardly.”

“He is, however, a failing of yours,” Higaki noted lightheartedly. “Isn’t that right? Admitting this─is the only reason you discovered Seito the Garland, and why you’re finally showing yourself to me, after being so evasive. No one forced you to come report back to me about your big discovery.”

“Time to face my failings, huh.” It was as if Togame were ignoring what Higaki said─and at the same time, confronting her message head-on. “You make it sound so easy─but that sort of thing is deceptively13 complex─even once you stop averting or closing your eyes.”

“You got it!” said Higaki. “I’m glad you figured things out before your muscles got too sore.”

“Sore? I’m sore all over. My muscles are ready to snap.” Togame waggled her arms to underscore her point. “Though I must say, facing you like this has made me realize a variety of things. If only in that sense, I must admit I’m grateful.”

“So, what did you realize? You seem to have forgotten some very important things.”

“Well, for one thing─my father’s last words to me.”

She remembered how Takahito Hida looked in his last moments.

Vividly remembered watching Mutsue Yasuri take his life─and yet.

Togame had forgotten.

The last words of Takahito Hida.

Even forgetting─she had forgotten them.

“Since the memory was a total mess, it took quite a bit of time to sort things out, even for a thinker such as myself.”

“There’s one thing that sort of puzzled me,”14 Higaki said, as if the thought was no more than a passing fancy. “Why didn’t you sic Yasuri on me after our first fight? Knowing you─I’m sure you instantly thought up some clever way to have him beat me.”

“On a scale from one to ten, where Shichika’s strength is at the top, you’re seven─but Shichika divided his strength equally, between offense and defense. Then you devoted all your strength to defense─which makes it seven to five in your favor, right?”

Togame spoke calmly, breaking it down.

“That makes it simple. If you devote all your strength to defense, Shichika has no reason to defend himself─whereby he may as well focus entirely on offense. That makes it ten to seven, in his favor─does it not?”

“You got it.” Higaki nodded magnanimously,15 pleased with her response. “I’m not so sure that I would call it simple, but Yasuri could have worked it out if you had told him what to do. But you didn’t. Why is that? It would have been a great way of letting him blow off steam.”

“Because I realized there was another way of seeing things.”

Realized.

She had made a realization.

“If Shichika devoted all his strength─all ten points to defense, what then? There wouldn’t be a battle at all, much less a winner. Therefore─”

Togame glanced at Seito the Garland.

But since it lacked a blade─her eyes had nothing to catch.

“By foregoing offensive tactics, we were able to achieve our objective, without actually having to win the fight─case closed.”

“Go on,” Higaki urged her.

Togame nodded.

“Infuriating as it may be, it is exactly as you say─if I had failed to make this realization, and I had happened upon this hilt and handguard, I never would have thought it was a sword. At best I would have seen it as an artifact, discarded in an execution site─and tossed it aside with all the other trash that I uncovered in the dig. I doubt I would have thought to ask for Shichika to appraise it. I thought it was the blade that makes the sword─necessitating the likes of superior steel that never bends or breaks or loses its edge. I’m not about to toss that idea aside─but I’ve realized there’s another way of seeing things.

“The hilt and the handguard are without question part of a katana. In the absence of a blade, this sword needs not a scabbard to protect it─which means to carry it, you simply hold it tight, like this─a hilt and handguard, all you need to face yourself, with firm conviction. Isn’t that so?”

“Splendid. Precisely!” Higaki said. “Perhaps my hints gave it away.”

She was probably right.

Yet this, too─reflected the personality of her father.

The personality of Takahito Hida.

He always said─one word too many.

Not to his detriment─but to his profit.

She remembered.

“Clever girl, my dear Togame.”

“It’s unbelievably annoying to be talked down to like that, when you appear to be a child. But whatever─listen Higaki. In recognition16 of my cleverness, how about answering a question from me?”

“Sure. Ask me as many as you want.”

“You mentioned receiving Seito the Garland directly from Kiki Shikizaki─in that case, when the Old Shogun arrived with an army17 to wrest this sword from you, how did you fend him off? Where were you during the Age of Warring States?”

“On the battlefield─trekking my way from one realm to the next. Though hermit magus I may be, I cannot afford to be aloof in times of war. I performed the daring feat of fighting without doing anything at all─wielding Seito the Garland, I checked a good many adversaries along the way. By checked, of course, I mean suppressed.”

“…”

“Fending off the Old Shogun was a cinch. The larger the army, the more diverse its pool of failings─which made it easy to make short change18 of his troops.”

“Perhaps this behavior explains why Kiki Shikizaki entrusted you with this Mutant Blade. Or was it the sword that chose its owner…”

A sword does not choose who to kill.

But a sword will choose its owner.

Besides─the Garland had no blade to kill with.

“Since you said to ask as many as I wanted, here’s another. What kind of man was Kiki Shikizaki? I seem to remember you calling him your friend.”

The legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki.

The swordsmith who effectively reigned over the Age of Warring States.

And yet─his life story19 was shrouded in mystery.

“Yeah. How can I put this. He was a negative guy.”

“Negative?”

This word gave Togame pause─catching her attention.

You could say it rang a bell.

“Although I did call him a friend, that was forever ago─I’ve forgotten a great deal. What I can say is that through me, he perceived an abyss, or perhaps something abysmal?20 Not the sort of thing you usually call a failing. That man─he had one of the oddest failings you’ll ever see. And in the end, he never faced it, simply rejected it and slipped away. Averting and closing his eyes, he forced me to accept Seito the Garland. As unwelcome a present as it gets,” Higaki said. “I tried my best to find someone I could pass it off to, but I was unable to locate an unassuming victim─and since I’m not trying to poison myself carrying that thing around, I buried it in the ground.”

“Did you bury it recently?”

“What?” asked Higaki. “No, just after the wars. This time, my dear Togame, I’m afraid that you’re mistaken. I buried it immediately after the wars ended. Then a castle was built on top of it, and when the castle burned this place became Hyakkeijo─times change, huh.”

“…”

Incredible.

One of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki─had been buried under Hida Castle.

Hence what made─Takahito Hida realize.

That history was wrong.21

Taking a moment to herself, Togame put it all together.

Reconciling22 her long-forgotten memories─with this new information.

In the end.

This is why her father─took aim23 on the Owari Bakufu.

Sacrificing so much.

Risking the lives of all his family and his comrades.

Taking aim─for the sake of history.

“Well, all matters of venom aside, by the time that he made this one here─”

Higaki pointed at Seito the Garland, which Togame was still holding.

“Kiki Shikizaki was pretty close to perfecting his vision of the Mutant Blades.”

“Perfecting? That’s an odd way of putting it, when the Twelve Possessed are said to be his masterpieces.”

“Wait. Don’t you know, Togame?”

Higaki cocked her head.

Her tone unchanged, dispassionate as ever.

Light─unemphatic.

“Togame─have you honestly been dragging around Yasuri without knowing what he is? I suppose you’re also unaware of why your sword is blessed with this ability to appraise the other Mutant Blades.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“At this rate, I should be asking you. It comes as a complete surprise that you know absolutely nothing of the sword that Shikizaki made after the test run24 we call the Twelve Possessed. The last sword that he ever made. His magnum opus25─Kyoto the Diamond.”

“Sh-Shichika?”

“Not Yasuri─so much as the entire Kyotoryu.”

The hermit’s words reminded Togame of something she had heard in the fourth moon of the year.

The words of the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi.

Sabi called the Kyotoryu─a memento left by Kiki Shikizaki.

The Kiki Pedigree.

Whereas Sabi had called himself a reject.

At the time, Togame had been totally confused─but Sabi had assured her that the spirit26 of his choice of words would become clear as she continued with her Sword Hunt.

In which case.

Perhaps this was the moment of clarity─!

“A matter of bloodlines as well as bloodshed.27 But really─I must say I’m impressed that you could make it this far without knowing. Since you came armed with the Diamond, I assumed you were qualified to do so, but it seems that I was jumping to conclusions. Which led me to assume you could relieve me of the Garland…although I guess I was a bit confused. Whoa, what a rocky ride…but no harm done. Things worked out in the end.”

“Now that you mention it, Kiki Shikizaki and Kazune Yasuri, the founder of the Kyotoryu─were contemporaries.”

Both of whom had lorded over28 the Age of Warring States.

In which case─perhaps the two of them had some kind of a connection. But did that mean that Kiki Shikizaki─played a role in the creation of the Kyotoryu?

The magnum opus─Kyoto the Diamond!

“Which is why─which is precisely why it has no blade,” Togame said.

“Seito the Garland was one of the last swords Shikizaki ever made─so I guess it makes sense…but my dear Togame, after making it this far without knowing, I doubt this information will change anything for you.”

“…”

Higaki was right.

Nothing was going to change─knowing the truth about Shichika and the origins of the Kyotoryu made no difference whatsoever.

Togame’s Sword Hunt was no more than a device.29

No more than a means to an end.

A convenient means─for taking down her father’s foes.

However.

It was this Kyoto the Diamond who took the head of Takahito Hida; and this stubborn fact─

Could prompt an inexorable change in Togame.

Though it was too soon to understand in what manner.

“So, Seito the Garland…” Togame brought their conversation to a close─and stood. “Thank you kindly for allowing us to take it.”

“I’ve done nothing to deserve your thanks─if there’s anyone you should be thanking, it’s yourself.”

“Hah─listen to you. Shichika will be returning any minute─I should be going. I didn’t have time to fill the hole in. Hope that’s alright.”

“It’s fine, but why didn’t you fill it?”

“Because I didn’t have the time.”

“Oh really. I thought you might be planning to use it as your grave. I was worried you might ask me to bury you there when you die.”

“Thanks for the lesson.”

Togame stashed Seito the Garland in her kimono and turned away from Higaki, so that the hermit magus could not see her face when she continued.

“Thanks to you, I learned about a whole new kind of strategy. This lesson has broadened the scope of my scheming abilities immensely. The fact your battle was a draw has probably left Shichika a bit unsatisfied─but sometimes we must step over our frustrations, if it means reaching our goals.”

“Precisely─wrong, at least this time,” Higaki said indifferently. “Sometimes we must throw away our goals as well. That’s the lesson that you ought to learn from all of this. Aspiration, ambition, vengeance─all of these are disposable, in the name of the true goal.”

“On that front, I have to disagree.”

Togame spoke without turning to face the hermit.

“I have abandoned everything except my goal─the goal I could never forsake.”

“I see that overcoming your failings has made you no less obstinate. Oh well─since that’s your nature, keep at it. There’s just one thing.”

Here, at the very end.

Rinne Higaki─had one more question for Togame the Schemer.

“What were your father’s last words?”

“Hah. What else?” Togame said without turning around. “What any father would tell his daughter─especially a daughter as lovable as me. It goes without saying, really.”

“Come on, spit it out.”

“I love you so much.”

Togame said it quietly.

“And here I am…thinking of him as my greatest failing.”

On her face, which the hermit could not see, was a faint, if also sad─

Smile.

1 草笛 KUSABUE “grass flute” making sounds using a piece of grass, as if playing recorder

2 絵空事 ESORAGOTO pipe dreams

3 見計らって MI HAKARATTE watched for the right timing 計る HAKARU plan; measure

4 従僕 JŪBOKU manservant

5 ひねくれ者 HINEKURE MONO “twisted one” a difficult person

6 測る HAKARU measure vs. 秤 HAKARI scale, also written 銓 HAKARI

7 己自身 ONORE JISHIN “me myself and I”

8 ご名答 GOMEITŌ correct answer pun on 名刀 MEITŌ famous sword

9 逆算 GYAKUSAN “reverse arithmetic”

10 そっくり SOKKURI entirely; spitting image

11 口は堅い KUCHI WA KATAI “my mouth is solid” able to keep a secret

12 逡巡 SHUNJUN indecisiveness

13 存外 ZONGAI counterintuitive

14 謎かけの答を訊く NAZOKAKE NO KOTAE WO KIKU ask for the answer to a riddle

15 鷹揚に ŌYŌ NI “like a gliding hawk” with equipoise vs. 鷹比等 TAKAHITO, which shares 鷹 TAKA hawk

16 ご褒美 GOHŌBI reward

17 大軍 TAIGUN “big military force”

18 造作もない ZŌSA MO NAI require little effort

19 全貌 ZENBŌ “complete visage”

20 深淵 深遠 SHIN’EN SHIN’EN “deep pool” “deep and far”

21 歴史の歪み REKISHI NO YUGAMI history’s warp, crookedness

22 合致 GACCHI bring into alignment

23 弓を引いた YUMI WO HIITA drew his bow

24 習作 SHŪSAKU “created for practice”

25 完了形変体刀 KANRYŌKEI HENTAITŌ “ultimate-form Mutant Blade”

26 真意 SHIN’I “true meaning”

27 血刀 KETTŌ bloody sword usu. CHIGATANA, alternative reading puns on 血統 KETTŌ pedigree

28 跋扈 BAKKO dominate

29 手段 SHUDAN step; expedient

■　■

Shichika emerged from his main fights along the way as follows.

Fight One, versus Komori Maniwa.

Victorious─winning move: Shichika Hachiretsu.

Fight Two, versus Ginkaku Uneri.

Victorious─winning move: Rakka Rozeki.

Fight Three, versus Meisai Tsuruga.

Victorious─winning move: Kyoka Suigetsu.

Fight Four, versus Hakuhei Sabi.

Victorious─winning move: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fight Five, versus Kanara Azekura.

Victorious─per referee.

Fight Six, versus Konayuki Itezora.

Defeated─per referee.

Fight Seven, versus Kyoken Maniwa.

Victorious─winning move: Hika Rakuyo.

Fight Eight, versus Nanami Yasuri.

Defeated─winning move: Hinageshi into Jinchoge.

Fight Nine, versus Nanami Yasuri.

Victorious─winning move: Tampopo.

Fight Ten, versus Skytron.

Victorious─per referee.

Fight Eleven, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Defeated─winning move: hit to the wrist.

Fight Twelve, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─winning move: hit to the face.

Fight Thirteen, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─winning move: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fight Fourteen, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─opponent surrendered.

Fight Fifteen, versus Rinne Higaki.

Draw─no winner.

In summary:

Fifteen fights, eleven wins, three defeats, one draw─

■　■

On the road home from Hyakkeijo─

Around the time they reached the border between Mutsu and Dewa, Shichika finally wrapped his head around the explanation that Togame the Schemer had given him. He looked up at the sky and muttered.

“That means the thousand Mutant Blades, including the Twelve Possessed that the Old Shogun failed to capture, were only practice for making me, his final sword and magnum opus─I hear what you’re saying, but I gotta admit it doesn’t really click for me.”

“Strictly speaking, his magnum opus isn’t you per se, but the entire Kyotoryu─whereby the founder of your school, Kazune Yasuri, as well as your father, Mutsue Yasuri…and even Nanami Yasuri, though she be something of an exception, collectively form Kyoto the Diamond.”

“I wonder─I have a weird feeling about this. Besides, this is all according to that pesky kid Rinne Higaki, right? What if it’s just a stupid lie and she’s just messing with your head?”

“You’re right about her being pesky─she’s a pain alright, always saying the most random things. That said, my father was never one to lie simply to be annoying.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. When he wanted to be annoying, he told the truth.”

Togame and Shichika continued down the highway, side by side.

Their hope was to return again to Owari.

“I dunno, Togame, I still have this funny feeling. I appreciate the explanation for why I have a sixth sense for the Mutant Blades. That clicks for me,1 but so what? Who cares, right?”

“It must be nice to be happy-go-lucky─but don’t forget to hurt a little. Though perhaps you’re fine as you are…”

“What if this thing where I, and no one in the Kyotoryu, can swing a sword to save our life is all because we’re cursed by Kiki Shikizaki? Or in the words of Sabi, bound to him… Well, Togame? What next? If we head back to Owari, the Princess will probably just send us on our way again.”

“In that case, I’ll stop and hatch a scheme. That is, if Princess Negative gives us an indication2 of the whereabouts of the last two Shikizaki blades.”

“Hmm. Last two, huh.”

Two swords remained.

Dokuto the Basilisk. Ento the Bead.

At present, neither Togame the Schemer nor Shichika Yasuri had the foggiest idea of where the two swords were, or who it was that owned them─

“Does that mean you’ve almost realized your ambition?”

“Hard to say. That hermit magus might try teaching me another lesson if we start talking about ambition or goals again.”

Rinne Higaki.

When Shichika returned, the girl had disappeared.

Literally3─without a trace.

Perhaps this meant his failings, as well as Togame’s, had gone with her.

“Another thing, Shichika…about the sword we shipped back to Owari from our last inn, Seito the Garland. While I found the concept of a swordless sword, comprising but a hilt and handguard, captivating on its own, it reminded me a little of our experience with the Cured… Don’t you think it was a little bit too easy to capture?”

“Nah, it just means that hermit wanted us to have the Garland, right?”

“Perhaps you’re right. However─since holding the sword makes you want to kill, but all the venom is directed back at you, its function as a sword is topsy-turvy.”4

“If holding it makes you want to cut yourself…maybe that’s why it has no blade. I’m starting to see why that hermit kept it buried underground…and what was up with that woman─I mean, was she even a woman? That’s just how she appeared to you and me.”

“Hmm. As a hermit magus, perhaps she has transcended5 gender─whoever she was, she’s certainly not someone I’d like to see again. But enough about Higaki, our focus now is Kiki Shikizaki. What drove the legendary swordsmith to create the Mutant Blades, the Twelve Possessed, and then finally his magnum opus? What was the Old Shogun’s actual motive for trying to hunt down all the Mutant Blades…and what caused him to fail? Last month, I touched upon these questions with you, but I think it’s about time that I thought long and hard about these things.”

“That sounds like a lot to think about. Why not hold off until we’ve rounded up the last two of the Twelve Possessed?”

“Out of the question─we need to beat them to the punch before they even make a fist. It’s best to finish counting your chickens as far ahead of them hatching as possible.”

“Hmm.”

Kiki Shikizaki.

The Old Shogun.

Princess Negative and Emonzaemon Soda.

And of course the Maniwa…

There were a lot of things to think about.

Thinking about these things was up to Togame, not Shichika, but then, from a different perspective, he could not exactly separate himself from everything.

Namely.

Rounding up the last two swords─meant that his journey with Togame would be ending.

This trip that felt like it would last forever─was almost done.

More than the origins of the Kyotoryu or anything else.

This fact occupied his thoughts.

Once the journey was over─what would Togame do with him?

What would become of Shichika Yasuri─the son of her father’s immediate adversary?

“Although,” said Togame, “I’ll have to do some thinking about the Basilisk and the Bead as well. I have absolutely no idea what kind of sword the Bead might be…but I’m not without a sense of what to expect from the Basilisk. Judging by the name,6 I suspect it is the polar opposite of Oto the Cured, which has the power to detoxify.”

“What’s the use in spending your time guessing? That’s what got me into such deep trouble when we were going after the Twin─but the polar opposite of Oto the Cured, huh?”

Shichika realized they were now entering Dewa.

“Since we’re already here, how about swinging by Shogi Village on the way home?”

“Why?” asked Togame.

Her face not so much serious─as expressionless.

The menace in her eyes made Shichika falter.7

“What reason would we have to stop? So you could see Zanki Kiguchi? Eh?”

“‘Eh’?”

“Cheerio!”

She slugged him in the gut.

If he had flexed his abs, Togame would have hurt her fist, so Shichika took the full brunt of her attack, which packed much more of a punch than he anticipated─her excavation project must have toned her skinny arms.

Unnecessarily…

“Incredible. I can understand Konayuki, with her monstrous strength, and Nanami, staggering genius that she is, but I find it seriously unsettling that you would count Kiguchi as a weakness, when all she did to beat you was follow the rules.”

“Your jealousy is out of control.”

“Another thing─Higaki mentioned this as well. I get why you would see your sister as a failing, but it comes as something of a surprise that you wouldn’t feel the same way toward Mutsue Yasuri. To be honest, I figured you, like me, felt inferior8 to your father.”

“Hmm. Not so much for me. Actually, I’m kind of surprised about how hung up you are about your father. Since you’re plotting to avenge his death and all, I would have thought you’d be bursting with love9 for him.”

“Nothing strange about a little family feud.10 Not in my family─and not in yours. The tribe of Kyoto the Diamond… Nanami touched upon this, didn’t she─maybe she knew something?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t. If you did know, this story would have been a whole lot shorter… Anyway, we’re not stopping at Shogi Village. We need to hurry back to Owari.”

“Aren’t you being a little obstinate?”

“Not in my book.”

On that Togame was firm.

But she had more to say.

“And another thing─I may as well divulge the reason why my father started the Rebellion in the first place.”

“Reason? Wasn’t it just that the Owari Bakufu was too sleepy11 for him? That’s why he harbored his ambitions to unify the land─”

“Right, that too─but it was mostly about history.”

“History?”

“Yeah. Now I remember what he said to me. This is about history. Fixing a history that is all wrong─or exposing it as being wrong. My father said those things to me─but I was just a little girl. I failed to fully comprehend the meaning of his words, and have no choice but to fill the blanks myself. But in light of the fact that one of the Twelve Possessed was buried beneath Hida Castle─”

Then.

As she uttered these words─both of them stopped.

The passion of the conversation was not to blame.

Shichika and Togame were accustomed to talking as they walked─so why stop?

Because something was blocking the way.

Before their eyes─a child lay facedown in the road.

“Hey. You alive?” called out Shichika, dashing over to the child─Togame, though not quite dashing over, didn’t miss a beat either.

They turned the child over, so that he faced the sky.

It was a boy, not even ten years old.

“He’s alive─or seems to be. Oh, wait─he’s hurt.”

Saying the boy was hurt─was a gross understatement.

His chest had been slashed open and was oozing blood.

Without question─his wound was from a sword.12

“Don’t shake him. Just set him gently on the ground. Careful with his wounds,” Togame warned Shichika before he could try anything.

Not so very long ago, shake was exactly what he’d done to her.

“Okay.”

Shichika did as he was told. Over his shoulder, Togame gazed at the boy.

“Huh? He’s─”

“Hel─”

It seemed the boy was conscious, however barely. From the size of the gash, Shichika had taken it for granted he had passed out─

“H-Help… Help.”

The boy could barely form a sentence.

He spoke in a faint voice, without looking at Shichika.

“Help…please help.”

“Shh, I understand. Stop talking. Here, drink some water─it looks like you’ve stopped bleeding…but we should probably disinfect13 it.”

“N-No… T-Too late for me. Too late.”

Sleeveless ninja garb.

Those peculiar chains encircling his body.

The boy.

Pengin Maniwa─pleaded to Shichika.

“Hurry─please help Hohoh.”

■　■

Their fraught relationship, at times friendly, at others hostile─was nearing its conclusion.

Seito the Garland: Check

End of Book Ten

To Be Continued

1 腑に落ちた FU NI OCHITA “fell to the intestines” digested

2 示唆 SHISA hint

3 文字通り MOJIDŌRI “to the letter”

4 本末は顚倒 HONMATSU WA TENTŌ the “essential/inessential” turned upside down

5 超越 CHŌETSU surpass

6 毒刀 鍍 DOKUTŌ MEKKI “The Poison Katana: Plating”

7 たじろぐ TAJIROGU flinch

8 劣等意識 RETTŌ ISHIKI inferiority complex

9 愛情一杯 AIJŌ IPPAI brimming with affection

10 親子間の確執 OYAKOKAN NO KAKUSHITSU parent-child conflict, antagonism

11 ぬるさ NURUSA tepid

12 刀傷 KATANA KIZU “katana injury”

13 消毒 SHŌDOKU “extinguish venom”

AFTER(S)WORD

This marks the close of the tenth book of the epic novel Sword Tale. Now that Book Ten is complete, I can just barely see the finish line ahead of me, but the homestretch won’t be easy, so I’ll have to keep chugging along and hoping for the best. The fact that Togame the Schemer and Shichika Yasuri have only two more months together on their Sword Hunt makes me want to give it all I’ve got. What’s going to happen to them now? I almost want to finish things with Book Eleven and fill Book Twelve exclusively with take’s awesome illustrations, but regardless of what happens, that’s all I have for Sword Tale─Book Ten: Seito the Garland.

Two books left!

NISIOISIN