KATANAGATARI 1
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No one who speaks on behalf “of the nation” is up to any good─or so claimed Ginkaku Uneri, but toward what end remains to be seen. From a man like him, perhaps a comment like this was to be expected, no more than a captious1 remark meant to perturb the Schemer. What was certain, however, was that Togame, on the receiving end of this opinion, was no true servant of the nation.
They were not burglars─
But neither were they champions of justice.
Their orders may have come down from on high, but they weren’t rounding up the Twelve Possessed out of necessity─but in that case, why had Togame the Schemer resigned herself to such a journey?
To put it simply, she sought revenge.
One might say she had a vested interest.2
Her father was the Mastermind of the Rebellion─Takahito Hida, Kaoyaku of Oshu.
If the Great Sword Hunt was among the most ignoble laws in Japanese history─then Takahito Hida was surely among the most ignoble of men. But history is no more than a record written by the victors, a journal tweaked to cast them in a favorable light.
Togame had her own opinions, however.
She acknowledged that her father was a failure.
How else could you describe defeat in battle?
Nevertheless─ignoble was not the way she saw him.
The slaughter of every member of her family made a lone wolf3 of Togame─destroyed her lineage, with not an intimate relation left alive─and so she could never abandon the memory.
She proceeded to abandon everything else.
Her name.
Her history.
Her sympathies.
Her loyalties.
Her word.
Her heart.
Then─she infiltrated the bakufu. All to carry out the unrealized ambition, the cherished dream of Takahito Hida─but she still had a long, long way to go. Her investment of time and energy had won her a high rank, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu─but Grand Commander wasn’t good enough. For the sake of her father, for the sake of revenge, she had no choice but to rise higher, to a much higher rank.
At bare minimum, a position where she could speak directly to the shogun.
Within earshot.
Close enough, should she desire, she could have his neck─a rank that high.
Otherwise─she had no hope of changing the history books of tomorrow.
The defeated cannot tell their story.
And dead men4 tell no tales.
Come what may, Togame must survive─and be victorious.
For her, when all was said and done, collecting the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki was no more than a means to an end─it was not for the bakufu or the shogun, and certainly not for the nation.
Not a matter of necessity or circumstance, it was strictly personal.
In which case, what of her companion, Shichika Yasuri?
What gave him a reason to fight?
Having lived as long as he could remember on Haphazard Island, raised out of contact with the world, the concept of nation could not have been more foreign5 to him. The Master of the Kyotoryu, who forsook swords, would never seek out the Twelve Possessed simply because they were his opposite. His curiosity did not amount to motivation. His lack of motivation, and lack of affection for swords in general, may have been what drove Togame to enlist the Kyotoryu─but neither was a factor for Shichika.
Why, then?
The answer was characteristically plain and simple.
He was fighting for Togame.
A woman, and until recently, a stranger.
He had been stuck on Haphazard Island, forever refining his skill, not with purpose or significance, nor by necessity or circumstance. Now, at the age of twenty-four, he finally had a reason to exist.
Swords do not choose who to kill.
Yet─a sword will choose its owner.
Shichika had chosen her.
Komori Maniwa, the first partner Togame had enlisted on her quest to round up all the swords, had given Shichika the dirty details as to why she was hunting down the Twelve Possessed─her acts of valor, her distinguished exploits, were all performed not out of loyalty, but a deep thirst for vengeance. That could never move Shichika. The affairs of an institution with no bearing on an island monkey like himself were dismissible. He did not care to consider or cope with any delicate balance of interests. But there was one thing he could not ignore: the name of Togame’s father, Takahito Hida─Mastermind of the Rebellion.
Takahito Hida.
The name of the man whom Shichika’s father─Hero of the Rebellion, Mutsue Yasuri, Sixth Master of the Kyotoryu─had killed with his own hands, the blade of his school─indeed, the very man whose death had earned Mutsue his title.
Shichika’s father had killed Togame’s father.
Before her eyes.
Which was when her hair turned white.
…Shichika did not go so far as to see it as a way to make amends6 for the misdeeds of his father─in fact, he was unsure whether killing enemies in battle was truly criminal. Swords don’t pick who to kill. He was more than simply unsure, however─he hated himself for never having given it a thought, felt a terrible self-loathing for having swallowed whole the notion that his father was a hero. More than anything else─this woman had seen her own father murdered and devoted herself to avenging him, yet felt compelled to call upon the Kyotoryu for help, as the only means─and Shichika had been unable to imagine how she must have felt.
That was all there was to it.
The reason he was fighting.
For Togame.
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“Stop looking so bent out of shape, Togame.”
“I’m so not bent out of shape!”
“‘So not’?”
“Oh, uh… I’m not so bent out of shape!”
Slight difference.
The gusto behind her swift correction made her initial phrasing even cuter.
But this was no time to be feeling disarmed.
To recap─they had called for a break and left Uneri’s den. Another room in Gekoku Castle would have served as far as Shichika knew, but Togame insisted that strategy meeting or not, they had to go the whole length, whereupon the pair exited the castle.
Out into Inaba Desert.
Night had fallen, but the starry sky was too spectacular to describe it as pitch dark.
Sitting on the sand, they faced each other─even in a setting such as this, it was crucial that they maintain their evening imprinting7 routine, and Togame’s white hair enwrapped Shichika’s torso. A tower rising behind them in the desert, a woman dressed in elegance, and a beefy man her white hair enshrouded made for quite the avant-garde8 tableau.
Furthermore, Togame’s kimono was coming undone. Partly the mark of Uneri’s Zerosen─but she favored a casual styling to begin with, and this degree of sartorial distress seemed to fall within the scope of fashion for her.
“You sure sound childish sometimes… How old are you anyway?” asked Shichika. “You’re older than me, right?”
“That’s none of your concern. Who are you to be making my age an issue? In any case, I am not bent out of shape.”
“Seems like you have a lot on your mind.”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t share. Telling you would be like the pearls thing.”
“…Aren’t you abbreviating that a little too much?”
Like casting pearls.
No matter how upset she was, she could have kept in another word at least.
“Well, Shichika, what was it you wanted to check? Uneri’s iainuki far exceeded our expectations…but I saw no reason to put the battle on hold.”
“No, I didn’t mean to put it on hold─or if I did, it was only to check if he’d be fine with it beforehand.”
“…Fine with it?”
“To see if he would follow us out. But he didn’t.”
“That’s true…”
“The moment you stepped over the threshold and entered that room, he drew his sword on you. Flipping that around, as long as we don’t go into the room, he won’t come after us.”
This, Shichika said, was the first thing he wanted to check.
“No…I see your point. But why does that matter?”
“One difference between normal swordplay and iainuki…well, since I don’t use a normal sword, I don’t mean from the sword-user’s point of view, but his opponent’s…”
Since arriving on the mainland, Shichika had been carted to a number of schools of swordplay exemplified by the Hisho Dojo. The first reason for these visits was to gain a firmer grasp of what the Kyotoryu could do, the better to plan out their campaign for tracking down the Twelve Possessed. The second reason was to give Shichika more experience in battle, even if these exercises were not exactly live. They never left the realm of training─the swordsmen Shichika confronted didn’t use real blades, only wooden replicas.