KATANAGATARI 1

■　■

And why would it be otherwise?

Five years prior, when Inaba Desert had begun to spread, this castle lost every one of its caretakers. Once in disrepair, any building, be it castle or mansion, falls apart─and all the sooner in a desert. The fact that this edifice was still standing, most of its masonry in place, its shape more or less intact, was miraculous. While surely built to withstand dryness and the sandstorms, a building of this scale would be impossible for Ginkaku Uneri, the sole inhabitant of Inaba, to maintain on his own. The castle was rundown enough to doubt its structural integrity, but having no choice but to enter, Shichika followed Togame into the lonely tower.

A natural fortress.

But once they were inside, it was a normal castle. Except ruined, with sand granules blowing through the hallways and the walls.

It never would have been permitted in better days, but since no one could scold them, they had stepped right in, dumping their luggage at the entrance, without taking off their sandals─Togame in her flat ones, and Shichika in his straw sandals.

They walked the halls. Togame ahead, and Shichika behind her.

That was their marching order upon entering the castle.

“Hold back, Shichika,” Togame had told him by the entrance. “Let me go first.”

“…?”

Noticing Shichika’s puzzlement, she had rephrased herself slightly. “I’ll take point.”

“Point? Why? When we fight, that’s my job, not yours. Or do you want to fight Ginkaku first?”

“Fool. You know what I’m like in battle. He’d tear through me quicker than a shoji.”13

“You don’t have to brag about it.”

But why go first?

A paper screen wouldn’t even serve as a shield.

Moreover, he would never use his employer as one.

“Shichika, since you seem a bit confused, allow me to spell things out.” About to step into the castle, Togame turned around, but because of the substantial difference in height, even facing him, it barely felt like they were face to face.

“This is no burglary.”

“Huh? What?”

“Our mission is to secure the Twelve Possessed. By order of the shogun. His will must be obeyed. That notwithstanding, we can’t just barge in and clash swords─so to speak─and snatch the Razor. We must follow procedure. Before battle, we must attempt diplomacy.”14

“Then what do you need me for? Diplomacy is your game.”

“Which is why I need to go first. But I still need you. This is not the Old Shogun’s Great Sword Hunt, dare I even mention that debacle─a pox on history. It must not be repeated. If we must resort to battle, we need a just cause.”15

“I don’t get it. Is this, like, bureaucratic?”16

“…Let’s go with that for now. If what I hear is true, Ginkaku Uneri is a friend to none. Not only a ronin, but a villainous rake, who would kill anyone for a price. His family legacy aside, he has made himself a wanted man for ignoring our repeated warnings and insisting on occupying Gekoku Castle.”

“Well, that makes sense.”

“It would be fair to say that every one of the five swords whose whereabouts are known, including the Razor, is in the hands of this caliber of individual. I wouldn’t expect much better from the next four. As a rule, you would need to be insane to intentionally partake17 in the Shikizaki blades’ venom. As for Hakuhei Sabi, regardless of his reputation as a swordsman, he was hardly known for his decency even before obtaining the Whisper. But nevertheless, Shichika─we must entertain the possibility.”

“Entertain it?”

“It’s like this. What would you do if a good guy had one of these swords?”

Togame was less addressing Shichika than asking herself.

“We aren’t burglars─but neither are we on the side of justice. Backed by the shogunate, we can kill without being punished,18 but we can’t just go around hacking people into pieces. This may be an order from on high, but we are not rounding up the Twelve Possessed out of pure necessity. Bear that in mind.”

Togame spoke as if he had no choice in the matter and turned back toward the castle.

If he was honest, Shichika had not understood half of Togame’s lecture. It went in one ear and out the other. You could argue that concepts like good guy or bad guy or madman were still opaque to him due to his inexperience, but in actuality, his brain simply couldn’t do the work.

Indeed, it might be best not to invoke his lack of experience.

Being, for the Kyotoryu, meant being a katana.

The sword chooses its owner─but does not choose who to kill.

That was the way.

No matter how simple and innocent Shichika may act, or by virtue of these very qualities─he lacked any logic or ethics. Honed, literally, as a katana, Shichika had not been taught how to be human.

The same went for his father who raised him.

Able to kill anyone without flinching.

Good or bad, woman or child─it had been irrelevant.

Consequently─Mutsue Yasuri became Hero of the Rebellion.

It will be a little longer before Shichika finds himself caught between the rock of his assignment and the hard place of compassion,19 in confronting a genuinely good person with one of the Possessed.

“Hey,” he said.

“What is it?”

“There’s a stain on that tatami.”

On the lookout, searching through the castle, Shichika had noticed a black splotch on a mat along the edge of one of the larger rooms. Both of them instantly knew what the stain was.

Blood.

“I guess this is where he killed Shirasagi?”

“Wrong,” Togame shot him down. “The color of the straw is unlike any other in the room. If the mat had been here all along, you would expect it to have faded the same way as all the others. The original mat must be in the room where this mat was stained with blood.”

“Makes sense. I can see that. But why would anyone go to all the trouble?”

“There must be a den20 where he spends most of his time. Shirasagi barged in, and they fought. He won, but messed up his tatami. And who wants to wake up on tatami stained with blood? That’s why, so far as I can tell, he swapped it with one of these mats.”

Shichika looked solemnly at the ceiling. Tall as he was, it was too high for him to reach, even on tiptoes. A castle was a castle, no matter how dilapidated.

“What’s wrong? Is something still unclear to you?”

“No…well, it’s just that Ginkaku Uneri has to be nearby. With blood you have to worry about the smell, so I can’t see him switching it with the tatami in the room next door to him, but I doubt he would bother going far.”

“Perceptive. Well then, let’s have a closer look.”

“Gotcha.”

Then.

The two of them arrived before the fusuma.

They were deep in the recesses of the castle─but there was nothing special about the doors they stood before, nor any sign of life. Only, ever since entering Gekoku Castle, this was the only room whose fusuma were closed.

In every other room, the fusuma and shoji had been opened up entirely.

This had to be it.

“…”

“…”

They looked each other in the eye.

Shichika motioned to touch the fusuma, but Togame signaled for him to stop. While she didn’t come out and say so, she conveyed that it was her intention to go first. Shichika obediently withdrew his hand, of no mind to upset her. In their dynamic, he recognized he was the servant. When she told him to go ahead, he went ahead; and if she said to stay behind, he stayed behind.

It must have been for want of care the door stuck in its jamb, but when Togame put her back into it─

The fusuma clacked open.

By no means was this room spacious─frankly, it was cramped. Devoid of furniture, much less any decorations, it was floored with tatami and bare. One person, on his own, would take up almost all of the room.

In it sat a man.

He was lanky, with long hair like a girl.

A simple black kimono.

Eyes closed, he sat cross-legged in the center.

He almost seemed asleep─no.

In fact he was.

“…”

“…”

Again, they looked each other in the eye.

Then they turned back to the man at the same time.

The man in black─was asleep with a katana at his hip.

In a black scabbard.

Black handle, black tsuba.21

A sword─so hidden22 by the black of its surroundings as to be almost invisible.

Shichika felt a strange sensation. Different from the month before, when Komori pulled a sword out of his body─on that occasion, before he had a chance to ask, the ninja declared the sword to be Zetto the Leveler, one of the Twelve Possessed, among the masterpieces forged by Kiki Shikizaki.

This was different.

No one had said this was Zanto the Razor.

Not Togame, and not Ginkaku Uneri. Strictly speaking, he had no proof the man sleeping before him was in fact Ginkaku Uneri.

But Shichika’s intuition23 made it clear. He knew.

That sword─was Zanto the Razor.

“Um…excuse me?”

Of course, Shichika lacked any reason or explanation as to why he knew…the idea popped into his head, it could easily be wrong, he had better relax…his feelings swirled, but the strange sensation only lasted for an instant.

And then─

“Are you Ginkaku Uneri?”

On hearing Togame’s supple voice, the fleeting experience vanished from his mind, nearly disappearing from his memory.

In her usual supercilious tone, Togame addressed the man, whose eyes had yet to open. “I am Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu.”

Her standard introduction.

If this were a more conventional story, now would be the time to reveal an item bearing the insignia of the shogunate, but Togame belonged to an office so shrouded in secrecy,24 so buried in the background, that she carried nothing that could prove her identity, which could only be announced verbally.

“That sword you have─Zanto the Razor, is it not?”

“Pipe down,” the man muttered. In polar contrast with Togame’s piercing voice, his murmur seemed to fade away. “Yes, I am Ginkaku Uneri…and who are you? Miss Togame from somewhere…and this sword is indeed Zanto the Razor…but quit hooting and hollering.25 I just woke up. Your voice goes straight through my skull.”

“…My apologies.”

Togame lowered her voice somewhat─and smiled. She must have been relieved, having uncovered the man she wanted, and by his side the sword.

The man─Uneri─was awake now, but remained seated on the floor. Eyes heavy, barely even open, he acknowledged the presence of Togame and, a step behind her, Shichika.

He kept the katana at his hip. Even when he was asleep.

Shichika doubted it was the best way to protect the sword. Did he keep it by his side, slung at his hip at all times, afraid that someone might steal it at any moment? If so, the man was pretty insecure. Then again, a stunt like carrying the Leveler inside you was probably unique to Komori Maniwa, and the other owners of the Twelve Possessed had to be beating their brains to think up ways to keep them safe…

“And? What brings a bigshot26 from the bakufu to the middle of the desert? Wait, you called my name. Another eviction notice… No, you want the Razor.”

“Yes, the Razor. How about giving it to me?” Togame came right out and asked him.

Straight talk. Perhaps a little too straight, thought Shichika, a step behind her. She had said they would attempt diplomacy, but now that he thought about it, could a highhanded woman like her actually negotiate? She had been just as direct the month before, on Haphazard Island, in offering Shichika a job (he wasn’t sure how she saw it, but on its own, her “diplomacy” had all but failed back then)…

“By give, of course, I don’t mean give away. The bakufu will find a way to make it worth your while. I can tell you one thing, though. No good will come from being so possessive. It’s just a sword.”

“The other day…”

Uneri spoke in the same sleepy voice, declining to engage Togame.

“Some poser27 ninja came to give the same kind of speech… Was that guy a friend of yours?”

“My friend? As if,” denied Togame.

The Maniwa had stabbed the Schemer in the back, and in her position, who wouldn’t be dismissive? But if she was already correcting him, she might also take issue with “poser ninja”─that’s what Shichika thought, anyway, which made him a pretty decent guy.

“Don’t compare me─or us─to that lowlife ninja. We have come with a proper28 deal. It may only be a sword, but I am well aware of its value. One of the Twelve Possessed forged by legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki… I know full well that it is irreplaceable. But Uneri, I need you to cooperate, for the sake of the bakufu, nay, the sake of the nation, and do your part.”

“…No one who speaks on behalf ‘of the nation’ is up to any good,” Uneri answered drowsily. “Even that poser ninja was a little more convincing…although he spoke in such a weird way I’m not sure I actually understood him…hwa.”

Uneri let out a big yawn.

His mood and tone made Togame purse her lips.

Not only highhanded, she was impatient…Shichika would be amazed if this attempt at diplomacy was a success, but he kept his mouth shut. No matter how ill-disposed Togame was to diplomacy, he could not do much better─no.

It was her job. Shichika, the katana, had no right29 to speak.

In the confines of his heart, he found Togame adorable30 for her brazen willingness to tackle a situation she was unfit to undertake─but that was classified.

“Don’t tell me you never plan to leave this castle, out here in the middle of the desert. If there is anything you desire, I have ways to help you─out in the open, and behind the scenes.”

“You’ll saddle yourself with a ronin like me? How thoughtful─but I’ll have you know, there’s a price on my head.”

“I could clear that up for you. Your wish is my command.”

Fwaa.

Another massive yawn. He seemed unwilling to entertain Togame’s offer. She was getting nowhere.

The sword’s poison─had it gotten the better of him? Shichika had to wonder. Its effects might be less potent on ninjas like Komori and Shirasagi, but Uneri was a swordsman, and the venom might have found an ideal host.

“Listen, Uneri─”

“I appreciate that you’ve stopped shouting, but now you’re so quiet I can barely hear you. Come a little closer?” requested Uneri, bleary-eyed. “It’s disrespectful31 to address a swordsman from the doorway. I don’t care how important you are. That’s no way to ask someone a favor.”

“…”

Togame snarled her lips in displeasure, but she had to admit he had a point, at least in that respect, and so stepped through the doorway into the cramped room where Uneri sat. Shichika was unsure whether to follow her, but the room was crowded enough with just Uneri, and fitting another person might have been impossible anyway. He decided not to move, but to stay put where he was. Togame stepped her right foot, then her left into the room─when Shichika realized the tatami by the doorway was of a different color than the mats around it. This must be where, he thought. The mat that had been swapped out, in the other room─

But then.

Ever so subtly, Uneri moved his right hand.

So subtly that it hadn’t really. The slightest twitch.

So that his right hand seemed to grip the handle of the katana.

That instant.

Shing!

A sound.

But ahead of the sound, a fraction of an instant earlier─Shichika had reacted. Deciding not to move, to stay where he was, he noticed the color of the tatami─and instantly leapt before he looked. Pretty much by reflex. Working every muscle of his body, he spun his waist for a backspin spinning kick─

“Kyotoryu─Yuri!”32

Trouble is, from where he stood outside the doorway, he could spin all he wanted─once or a hundred times─and the blade of his foot would never reach Uneri. Lengthy as his legs may be, the Yuri could hardly make them any longer. What his foot could reach, however barely─what it contacted midair, instead of Ginkaku Uneri─was Togame.

The move was imperfect, executed not from the proper stance, but completely upright. Yet if his heel, gyring with all his weight behind it, were to slam into Togame, whose frame bore comparison to shoji paper, the explosive33 force could end her life. He made sure not only his heel but his entire sole made contact, so that he would be less kicking than thrusting, or better, hooking─

It slammed into her chest.

With zero training in the martial arts, she was unequipped to deal with this surprise attack, a frontal strike from behind, and her body was shot backward in a grand arc. Out of the room where Uneri sat and into the room with Shichika, whose foot, in turn, spun away from Uneri. Unable to kill his momentum, Shichika made another small turn in place. Togame, caught off guard, planted her butt on the tatami.

Then the sound.

Shing!

“You piece of─” yelled Togame, sitting up on her elbows. Her voice did pierce your skull.

“Calm down, Togame.”

“Who kicks you out of nowhere and says calm down? You ass. When I felt myself being sucked back from behind, I thought aliens34 were abducting me.”

“What an imagination, but…see?”

Figuring there was no time to explain, Shichika pointed at the spot where her obi35 passed over her stomach. The layers were prodigious, but there, the fabric had been slashed. Cutting through at least half the countless layers of kimono. The gash was clean─summoning the corpse of Shirasagi Maniwa, who had been dumped in two parts outside the castle.

A close shave. Since no person can move faster than his sheer reflexes allow, it was the closest shave possible…or the Razor’s lightest cut.

“Wha…wha…” Togame had lost her words. And any color in her face. “I-If I didn’t wear so many layers, my body would be…”

“Um, if you were wearing fewer layers, none would have been sliced, more like.”

She was a little confused.

But the Schemer had seen her share of tight fixes and quickly bounced back from it. Though yet to stand from where she planted her behind, she faced Uneri─through the doorway.

“Hey you!” she raised her voice. “What─was that?!”

“Wow. I guess that was that…” For someone who had swung his sword at an agent of the bakufu, Uneri was oddly calm, and oddly sleepy. “In all the time I’ve held the Razor, none have dodged my Zerosen but you…or was it both of you? Or was it you?” he asked impudently.

Glaring at Shichika.

Although the man’s eyes looked tired─it was a fierce glare.

“You think you’re surprised?” Shichika asked in turn. “I’ve heard iainuki was extreme, but I had no idea it was so fast.”

Then he realized.

The sound he heard when Uneri clasped the handle of the sword─shing!─was the tsuba contacting the sheath. He was so blisteringly fast that you heard the note almost at the same time that he touched the handle.

No sooner had he drawn the sword than it was in its scabbard.

The flash of a katana in iainuki is customarily called issen.36 But in the hands of Uneri, the Razor caught no light. Nothing to see, nothing to hear─all you saw was your own body, sliced in half, and all you heard was the click of the tsuba.

Which is why he called it Zerosen─no flash.

This was iainuki to the extreme, an Uneri family tradition.

“Sounds like your scare and my scare cancel out.”

Somehow both on and off the mark─not that it matters which─Uneri softly drew his fingers from the handle of the sword.

But this hardly put them at ease.

Shichika corrected his rash impression of the man. He was anything but insecure; for someone so phenomenally skilled in iainuki, keeping the katana at his hip was simply the most efficient way of safeguarding the Razor.

“Uneri─do you realize what you’ve done?!”

“I told you, young lady, stop shouting… Who’s that hunk of meat, your older brother? Think you’re gonna strongarm37 me into a deal? In that case, let’s jump straight to the point. You’re quite persuasive…but I’m just a simple swordsman, who settles my deals with the sword.”

“My older brother?! Do I look like his little sister to you? How am I a ‘little sister’?”

Her reaction, clouded by ire, was somewhat odd. Perhaps her confusion had yet to abate.

“My forefather turned on his lord and even the Old Shogun, refusing to relinquish this sword. If I say ‘oops, sorry, by all means’ and hand it over now, my entire lineage will be laughing in their graves. They’ll laugh so hard I’ll never sleep again.”

“You’re scared of letting go of that katana?” Judging that their diplomacy was in shambles, Shichika interrupted the bickering at last. “This move of yours, the Zerosen─without Shikizaki’s Razor, you can’t whip it out as fast, right? You’re scared of losing that?”

“And if I’m scared─what of it?”

“Just saying. That’s the trouble with being a swordsman who uses a sword.”

After a pause, Uneri chuckled. “What do you know about being a swordsman? Far as I can see, you carry no blade.”

“I am a swordsman. Make no mistake.”

“If you were, you would know better. A swordsman has no use for words. He acts. If you want the sword, shut up and try to take it─and I’ll shut up and fight.”

“That stubborn, huh?”

“It’s a matter of dignity,” Uneri said without a shred of doubt. “Sure, I am scared. I don’t have to have the Razor to perform the Zerosen, but having tasted its speed and power, I could never go back. What scares me isn’t someone trying to take it, but my own speed. You must have felt pretty good about yourself just now saving the young lady’s life. But that was nothing. At peak speed, the Zerosen moves faster than light.”

Try me, Uneri beckoned unto Shichika with his fingers.

“Togame─”

But Shichika turned down the invitation. Better put, he completely ignored Uneri. Instead, he turned and addressed Togame, who was still sitting on the floor.

“There’s a few things I want to check. You good?”

“Pardon me?”

Togame seemed taken aback by Shichika’s obtuse remark, but he remained unfazed.

“Hey.” Now he was speaking to Uneri. “We’re gonna have a strategy meeting.38 Take a nap or something. We’ll come right back.”

“…”

“Get ready to show off─I want to see the Zerosen, at peak speed.”

“…Shut the fusuma behind you.”

Unlike Togame, Uneri didn’t seem to think it rude─though he might have become warier of Shichika. He spoke again a few moments later in a voice that was impenetrable.

“I’m sensitive. If light gets in, I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Is that so. Gotcha. Later.”

Shichika shut the fusuma, taking an extra couple of seconds thanks to the poor fit. If it was Togame’s job to open the fusuma, how symbolic, thought Shichika uncharacteristically, for it to be his job to close it.

“Shichika, what do you think you’re doing─”

“Wait, Togame, I’m not taking back39 what I said, but the speed of this guy’s iainuki is no joke─I’ll be ready to go back in, after a quick break.”

Shichika offered his hand to Togame. She looked incredibly uneasy, but after a time, she took it. While he had taken pains to go as easy on her as possible, once the blade of his foot had whammed her in the breadbox, she was not about to stand back up. She was shoji paper. If she hadn’t worn so many layers─she was right in a sense─the Yuri might have shattered her sternum.

“Oh….one more thing.” The voice came from beyond the fusuma. It sounded tired─Shichika had not been serious in recommending a nap, but evidently Uneri was perpetually about to sleep. “The white-haired young lady told me her name─but you, young man, what’s yours?”

“…”

Shichika looked to Togame. She nodded softly.

Since she was acting as an agent of the bakufu, Shichika wasn’t sure if his school’s involvement could be made public and had held off on announcing himself to Uneri, but she seemed to have no problem with it.

Then there was no reason to hesitate.

Shichika was proud of who he was.40

A pride handed down from his father.

“Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu─Shichika Yashurri.”

…

It wasn’t on purpose.41

1 抜け忍 NUKENIN to abandon a ninja group (or the expectations of ninja identity)

2 平城 HIRAJIRO a castle built on flat ground

3 天守閣 TENSHUKAKU tall fortification usually surrounded by castle walls

4 茶目っ気 CHAMEKKE being playful

5 外した HAZUSHITA missed

6 無感情 MUKANJŌ void of feeling

7 鎖かたびら KUSARI KATABIRA “shroud of chain”

8 敵前逃亡 TEKIZEN TŌBŌ flee under fire

9 たたらを踏む TATARA WO FUMU stumbling forward

10 白髪 SHIRAGA alternative reading of 白髪 HAKUHATSU white hair

11 強がり TSUYOGARI bluster

12 みすぼらしい MISUBORASHII shabby

13 障子 SHŌJI paper door

14 交渉 KŌSHŌ negotiations

15 大義名分 TAIGI MEIBUN defensible reason

16 お役所的 OYAKUSHO TEKI government office-y

17 摂取 SESSHU imbibe

18 咎め TOGAME blame Togame cannot be Togamed

19 人情 NINJŌ human feelings

20 居室 KYOSHITSU living room

21 鍔 TSUBA the elliptical and often ornate handguard of a katana

22 保護色 HOGOSHOKU protective coloring

23 直感 CHOKKAN “direct sense”

24 影 KAGE shadows

25 ぴーちくぱーちく PIICHIKU PAACHIKU onomatopoeia for ceaseless yammering

26 お偉いさん OERAISAN very important person

27 偽物 NISE MONO fake

28 正当 SEITŌ legitimate

29 領分ではない RYŌBUN DEWA NAI not his domain

30 萌え MOE geek slang for kindly affection and attachment

31 失礼 SHITSUREI “breach of manners”

32 百合 YURI lily

33 炸裂 SAKURETSU ripping

34 宇宙人 UCHŪJIN “space people”

35 帯 OBI wide sash tied around the waist of a kimono

36 一閃 ISSEN one flash

37 腕っぷし UDEPPUSHI brawn

38 作戦会議 SAKUSEN KAIGI time-out for brainstorming

39 撤回 TEKKAI undo

40 身分 MIBUN status/station

41 噛んじゃった KANJATTA “ended up biting (one’s tongue)” i.e. stumbling over a line