KATANAGATARI 1

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Shichika Yasuri and Togame had backtracked their way out of Inaba Desert and returned to the inn where they had slept two nights earlier. Track, of course, being a turn of phrase: there were none in the desert. Heading on west, toward Hoki, would have been too trying for Togame, though perhaps not for Shichika, and it had been the plan all along to return and then bypass1 the desert.

But Shichika knew nothing of their next destination except that it lay westward.

Which is why, back at the inn, as Togame became absorbed with packing Zanto the Razor, theirs at last, into a box for shipment, he spoke up.

“Where to next?”

“…”

Togame did not answer.

Not just now. For over a day since Shichika had kicked her in the face and used her as a springboard, she had not said a single word to him. Understandable, but Togame the Schemer, several years his senior, was acting remarkably unadult.

“Hello～o.”

“…”

“Hey, Togame.”

“…”

“Togame, don’t ignore me. You haven’t spoken since, like, yesterday. Did you get hurt or something when I kicked you? Hope not. Maybe you cut the inside of your mouth, so it hurts when you─”

“Zip it!”

But she buckled before he even apologized.

Poor form.

“Don’t ramble on like nothing happened when I’m mad! Open your eyes. Act like you’re sorry! You disregard my feelings, only to ask me whether I’m hurt. Unreal. How was I to know you needed me behind you─as a springboard!”

“Oh, that’s what you’re mad about.”

“I’m not mad!”

She was all over the place.2

Shichika explained that he hadn’t had a choice. So he did feel bad about what happened─not that he’d been showing any signs of remorse.

“If the Kakitsubata to Bara relay worked on him, that would have been it─I swear that using you was only the backup plan. Without the angle and the arc I caught, I never would have cleared him and stuck3 to the ceiling.”

In other words─Uneri was not unaware of the hole in his Danger Zone. His domain had an opening once you saw that it had a height in addition to a length and width. But he couldn’t have anticipated using an ally for a springboard─

“Then say so during our strategy meeting! Why that odd tease about strength coming from having something to protect?”

“Sorry, the line just popped into my head.”

“Just popped in!”

“Stop snarling, okay? I did use you as a wall, but not as a shield. I figured if I filled you in from the beginning, you would jump back reflexively, no matter how…unathletic you are. It’s not like I have eyes on my back. Unless you were exactly where I needed you, behind me, I couldn’t pull off the Rakka Rozeki.”

“And thanks to that, I missed seeing your Fatal Orchid. Again.”

“Come on. I’ve shown you Rakka Rozeki. In the dojos.”

“I want to see it for real. Anyway, whatever.”

Shouting had evidently cheered her up.

However immature, she knew how to let things go.

In any case, they had secured the Razor. With their mission accomplished, perhaps she saw this as the wrong time to complain.

Process be damned, that was her ultimate goal.4

“Know what though, Shichika? Whether it’s the Rakka Rozeki or the footwork for the Kakitsubata, your taijutsu5 reminds me of a ninja.”

“Huh? Really? I know so little about ninjas. Hard for me to say.”

Then again, mused Shichika, that ninja we met last month, Komori Maniwa, sure knew how to jump─

“Leaping and jumping is the bailiwick of the ninja, not the swordsman─who, as a species, keep their feet planted on the ground. Perhaps Kazune Yasuri, founder of the Kyotoryu, wove elements of ninjutsu into his concept for the school.”

“Maybe.” Shichika nodded. “That means the Kyotoryu can hold its own against those Maniwacs who aren’t swordsmen. Minus Shirasagi─how many of those bosses do we have left, ten?”

“Correct. Yet─now might not be the time to be saying this, but if I may, Shichika, it’s about the Kakitsubata. That kaleidoscopic footwork, accelerating and decelerating to whatever speed you like, is fabulous─but there has to be a catch.”

“Catch?”6

“Hiding your footwork with your hakama worked great this time. But the opposite could hold true, too. Against a lesser foe than Uneri, that kind of fake-out would be meaningless. Like for me, standing behind you. I had no idea when you were supposed to be feinting, or accelerating, or decelerating. As far as I could tell, you were just charging right in─footwork like that would be lost on an inferior opponent. And another thing. That Form Seven─it’s dazzling for advancing or falling back, but no good for strafing.”

“Exactly,”7 Shichika agreed.

That weakness was evident to him as its practitioner, but Togame could tell too, just by watching him from behind, which was a bit surprising.

Well.

She did say she was a military strategist.

“No good for it, or I can’t at all. The stance for strafing would be Form Six─of course, it still won’t be as dazzling as charging in and out. That’s not the meat of Form Six… Keep your eyes peeled for it.”

“I certainly will,” Togame said. Then she gave the box containing Zanto the Razor a light pat, a proprietary claim of sorts. “Good, all packed up. Once we’ve mailed this to Owari, we’ll be on our way. Where to next? Izumo.8 Bypassing the desert, we’ll go through Mimasaka, Bicchu, and Bingo.”

“Izumo, huh. That’s where the gods hang out.”

“An apt detail, for there, at a shrine of noble origins, whose history goes back farther than the modern bakufu or the Kyotoryu, Sento the Legion awaits us─a thousand swords, held by a thousand maidens.

“Once secured, the Legion would pose an interesting challenge in terms of shipping,” Togame noted. “When already the Leveler, and even the Razor, making it safely to the bakufu requires tricky thinking… Oh, by the by, Shichika.”

“Hmm?”

“Did you never actually see the Razor? I don’t think you were around to watch me clean the blood from the blade and the scabbard… Did you want to take a look? It’s neatly packed up, though.”

“Mm…”

Hoping to gauge its precise span, and the exact extent of the Danger Zone, Shichika had asked Uneri to show the blade─and it had been no lie that he was also simply curious.

A sword that could cut anything.

Who wouldn’t want to see?

Yet─

“Nah, I’m good,” he said.

“Oh? That would save me the trouble of packing it again─but are you sure? There’s no need to be shy about that much of an imposition.”

“I’m good.”

“I see.”

“Yep.”

Shichika had made himself scarce, and not by chance, as Togame had scrubbed clean the Mutant Blade. He was of a mind to move on without beholding the naked Razor.

When all was said and done, he had glimpsed none of the Zerosen─had brought down9 not a one. That was all there was to it, then.

“…”

Ginkaku Uneri, pilot of the Zerosen─had perished.

It was partially the doing of Shichika’s Rakka Rozeki, but the self-inflicted wound from the preceding Bloodlust had been deep. Uneri would not live to see the bleeding stop─and expired on the tatami, its two dimensions dyed one shade of red.

A fitting end for a warrior, perhaps it was not.

A fitting end for a swordsman─it was not.

Yet it may have suited the man.

“What’s going to happen to Inaba─and Gekoku Castle?”

“Nothing. That land has left the jurisdiction10 of the bakufu, and can only wither and die. But long after you and I have departed from this world, even a thousand years hence, the ruins of Gekoku may yet remain─a castle, though, it will never be.”

“So without people─there’s no castle?”

“Nor town, nor country.”

“Uh huh.”

“No swordsman or sword can conquer nature─may be the point.”

“That’s the point, in the end.”

“As far as I can see.”

“Man.”

Strength comes from having something to protect.

Shichika had said it just to convince11 Togame─but not so for Uneri. There were those who lived by having something to protect─this battle had made that clear to Shichika.

While coveting nothing, Ginkaku Uneri had wanted to protect something. Shichika, raised on Haphazard Island without possessions to call his own, did not need or covet anything to protect, but he wondered─just maybe, would doing so for this woman make him stronger?

“Still, Togame.”

“What now?”

“That last thing Uneri said12 showed some serious style,” Shichika shared what had been on his mind since then. “Not just style, it had a lot of personality… Would you say that was a catchphrase?”

Ahh… Suffering a direct hit to the skull from Fatal Orchid Seven, Uneri had fallen on his back, never to rise again, and with a hollow stare, though not without a kind of peace, he had intoned: Finally…I’ll catch up on my sleep.

“Not exactly,” answered Togame, her face not so forgiving, and borderline acerbic. “That was a farewell─his last words, or a parting message, if you will. Perhaps even a testament. It’s the sort of thing you only get to say once in a lifetime, when you’re on your way out.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t let it bug you. Certainly, in terms of demonstrating personality, last words have a lot more impact than a catchphrase, since you only have a chance to say them once in your entire life. But Shichika, as long as I’m around, that chance will not be yours to take.”

And she meant it.

“Don’t waste a moment mulling over how to say goodbye.”

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Zanto the Razor: Check

End of Book Two

To Be Continued

1 迂回 UKAI circumvent

2 支離滅裂 SHIRI METSURETSU incoherent an ironic callback to the Last Fatal Orchid, with which it shares the first syllable and last character

3 張り付く HARITSUKU cling

4 至上目的 SHIJŌ MOKUTEKI “supreme purpose”

5 体術 TAIJUTSU “physical technique” comprehensive term for martial arts

6 弱点 JAKUTEN weakness

7 当たり ATARI “hit” spot-on

8 出雲 IZUMO “whence clouds emerge”

9 撃墜 GEKITSUI shoot down (an airplane)

10 管轄 KANKATSU administrative control

11 言いくるめる IIKURUMERU nuance of bamboozling

12 台詞 SERIFU line (in a drama)

13 刃 YAIBA blade