I.
The cicadas sang loud under the setting sun. Despite the late hour, the air was hot and sticky. Dragonflies hung lazily above the wild grass, the humidity too much even for them. Soon the sun would disappear, offering a small reprieve from the unbearable heat. The Kajika frogs would start to sing, and the hotaru would come zooming out, shining streaks of yellow light in the dark. These were the telltale signs of the worst days of summer. Others would call them the best. But if Saburo ever met them, he would like to choke the life out of them with his bare hands.
Saburo loathed the heat. It made him miserable. His garments stuck to his skin, and sweat trickled down every part of his body. He moved slowly through the tall greenery, feet ankle-deep in the shallow muck, leading four men who flanked his sides, two by two. All were longtime enforcers of House of Dokuja, one of the prominent Samurai groups in the Myre. They had always been apprehensive of him, so they let him lead the pack. His numbers of service were the shortest, but his kill count put all of theirs to shame.
“We are nearing the settlement’s location,” said one of the men on his left.
“Keep your voice down,” another on the right warned.
Saburo grunted. He was a man of few words. Whenever he had something to say, he usually let one of his seven weapons do the talking.
The task was simple. A scout had reported that some members of Kizan’s House had established a camp in a clearing just outside Dokuja territory. By all accounts, it seemed clear an attack would be imminent. Kizan attacks had become a certain type of norm. Ever since Emperor Ayu’s fall and the end of her unified reign, they had kept to the shadows, striking at everyone they deemed an enemy. With the Khatuns spreading their influence throughout most of Heathmoor, the Myre seemed like the last place not completely controlled by Guljin and her so-called reign of peace. All the Houses had warring ideas of how to rule the Samurai—Kizan included. It just happened their goal was to attack pretty much everyone who wasn’t a member of their House.
Saburo was meant to do what he did best: unleash complete and total carnage. Kill the Kizan soldiers, severing them limb from limb, leaving nothing but blood and entrails as a message to their House. He always looked forward to these missions. They were the only times he was allowed to cut loose. To be unleashed. It took great effort to hold himself back. To hold his place among the ranks of the House, and be civil. But he did it, because they had taken him in. Given him a home. A purpose.
The sun was all but gone as they reached the edge of the forest. Ready for battle, Saburo parted a curtain of thick vines with his Kama Yari and stepped beyond, into the clearing. But there was a problem: there was no settlement. No Kizan camp. No enemy soldiers.
Saburo turned back to look at the four men, confused. That was when he heard movement behind him. He pivoted back to see four warriors, clad in armor, weapons drawn. In the black of night, he couldn’t see them properly. But they did not look like Kizan soldiers.
The first hit came from behind, slashed him at the knee. The pain was excruciating. Immediately he fell, overwhelmed by surprise and confusion. A stab in the shoulder followed. He yelled out, so loud it echoed through the moonlit swamp. On both knees he breathed in deep, swallowing the pain. He rose to his feet and turned, roaring with pure rage. One head was severed. A chest was slashed all the way across. But before he could turn towards the four newcomers, Saburo was stabbed in the leg and slashed across the arm. Then he was punched in the face, kicked in the ribs. More slashes followed. More kicks and punches. His weapon dropped out of his hand. Blood filled his mouth, marred his vision.
With too many wounds to count, Saburo fell. Life drained out of him as he stared at the inky, star-filled sky.
He heard the men laugh and congratulate each other. And that was when he saw, in the moonlight, his attacker’s sigil. It was the same as his. They were Dokuja. They were his kin. The revelation felt like the sting of another blade, burning with fury.
“I told you eight of us would be enough,” one voice said.
“It’s done,” another added. “The House will be pleased.”
Those voices. They were distant in his mind, but he recognized them. Who…? His thoughts drifted. His vision began to fade.
Silence fell, the voices gone. All he could hear now were the frogs, growing distant. A few inches above, he saw the dim glow of a hotaru.
Then his eyes closed, and he felt it all slip away.
II.
He could hear the rain.
Thunder rumbled directly overhead, a crack so loud you could feel it in your bones. Rain poured heavily, as if the heavens themselves were flooding. Saburo stood in the courtyard, raindrops framing his mask all the way to the chin. Where the droplets fell they found not water, but a pool of blood. The Orochi at his feet was no longer armed. Saburo held his opponent’s blade, a new addition to his collection. Victorious, he laughed hoarsely.
“I…” the Orochi whispered, terrified and ashamed. “I yield…”
Saburo didn’t care. He flipped the two swords in his hands and, with a terrible, mighty swing, he brought them both down into the Orochi. One in the stomach, the other in the throat. The man gurgled in his own blood, and died. Saburo swung the blood off the two blades and let out a victorious cry as loud as the thunderstrikes above before heading back to the monastery.
He woke up from his dream screaming, laying down on a firm hay mattress, staring at a dark oak ceiling. Outside, the rain pecked away softly at the roof.
“Do not try to move,” came a calm voice. It was a woman’s—deep, raspy and wise. “Your wounds. I have tended to them, but they are far from healed. It will take some time.”
It all came rushing to him. The trap in the swamp. The attack from his own people. His House. He had been hurt. He had been killed. He should be dead. Why wasn’t he?
As if she could hear his thoughts, the woman answered. “The old Knight, the one going about telling all these tales of war, he said you clawed your way out of hell. Through brutality… and death.” Every movement was difficult, but Saburo managed to turn his head and look at the woman. She was short, stocky. Wrapped in a thick bundle of rags that dragged on the ashy wooden floorboards like a dress. Her long gray hair curtained the sides of her round, wrinkled face.
“He left this for you,” she continued, pointing at a box neatly placed on top of a table at the far side of the firelit room. She sat by his side, a cup of warm heartleaf tea cusped in hand. “Drink,” she offered, “it will help you heal.”
Saburo was not a man known to be reasoned with. Whoever he saw, he usually treated as something to squander. Or maim. The old woman. He wanted to lash out at her. He should have killed her. But the way she looked at him stayed his hand. Perhaps it was desperation. Perhaps it was something else. Despite all the anger bubbling inside of him, he recognized the woman for what she was: a friend. He had never had one. Not at the House. Definitely not at the monastery, where he had trained to become a Sohei, so long ago. After his third test, which had ended with him slaying the Orochi in the thunderstorm, he had been expelled. Excommunicated. Deemed too violent, too dishonorable for the ways of the Sohei. None of the others had stood by him. All had simply watched as he was exiled into nothingness.
“Drink,” she repeated.
Hesitantly, he took the cup. After he drank, exhaustion hit him, and he fell asleep again. He dreamt of the swamp. Of evil creatures lurking in the dark, Samurai with flaming white eyes screeching and bellowing, attacking him, leaving him for dead.
“I told you eight of us would be enough!”
“It’s done.”
The voices were distorted, high-pitched. They swirled and echoed all around him, like a swarm of bats. “It’s done! The House will be pleased!” That was not what they had sounded like. No. Those voices. He knew them. Where had he heard them before?
He awoke screaming yet again, bringing his large fist down on the table, which threatened to splinter under the impact. Startled, confused, he realized he was standing over the white box that had been left for him. He traced his fingers on the lid, over the symbols carved in faded maroon. The kanji translated to “atone, retaliate, annihilate.” One led to the other. A story in three parts. All with the same conclusion. He opened the box, eyes fixed on the prize inside. He recognized it instantly. An artifact of Samurai legend: the Aka Mask. A storied symbol of carnage. He smiled, for whoever had left it for him intended to deliver a message. And he knew exactly what it was.
He allowed the voices to come. Let them fill him with rage.
“It’s done!”
“Eight of us would be enough!”
“A Sohei is not cruel!”
“I yield!”
“Stupid child, be gone!”
“You have no honor!”
“Leave the monastery at once!”
“The House will be pleased!”
Why hide what he really was? Why hold back?
The mask would reveal his true nature. He smiled, and put it on.
Clad in armor, armed with his seven weapons and sporting his new mask, he barged out of the old woman’s shed. The rain had stopped. Hints of moonlight pushed against the dispersing clouds. The elderly woman was just on her way back, basket of herbs hung in the nook of her elbow. He passed her by, and she was momentarily stunned into silence by the Aka Mask. He was already well past her when she finally managed to blurt something out.
“You should not be standing yet,” she protested.
He didn’t answer. He simply vanished in the shadows of the swamp.
III.
The young woman held her hand up, screaming, her emerald eyes pleading for mercy. Saburo brought his Kama Yari down on her, severing her hand down the middle. Blood gushed out copiously as she shrieked in horror, before he brought his weapon sideways into her neck. A young warrior rushed to his side, and Saburo simply grabbed him by the neck and ripped out his throat. The blood of his victims splattered on the beige fusuma that stood before him. To those on the other side, he was but a shadow, a dark silhouette bathing in the dim light of the paper lanterns behind. He pushed the sliding panel aside, leaving a hand-shaped streak of blood on the thin material. In the room, he found four warriors, three guests in elaborate dresses and two servants. All were cowering. There was no other way out of the room. They were trapped.
The journey to the Dokuja palace had taken him six days. Six days where he walked in a straight line, without sleep or rest. Six days of trekking through bogs and shrubs with only the sound of his footsteps to accompany him. On the sixth night, he had reached the palace. Now adorned with Khatun flags and statues, it had been clear from the muted sounds inside that a celebration of some sort was taking place. Saburo cared not why. Keeping himself hidden, he had barricaded the front gate and circled to the courtyard, to enter from the back.
There would be no escaping him.
He stood in the doorframe. Silent. Unmoving. All in the room gazed at him, cowering in fear. They recognized the Aka Mask. And they knew it spelled their doom.
“Pl…” one of the guests attempted. “Please,” he finally mewled. “We haven’t done anything…”
Saburo had been an unwanted child. A failed Sohei. Rejected. Outcast. Until Ken and Jiro had found him in the marketplace, covered in the blood of his victims. They had taken him in, offered him a place in the halls of Dokuja’s House. Here, he had been given a home. A purpose. Or so he had thought. They had lied to him. Used him. And thrown him away. Only now did he realize he was not meant for this world. This civilized society. His only purpose… was death.
He had held back for so long. Kept himself in control. No longer was that necessary. Now, behind the Aka Mask, he could let his true self out.
Saburo looked at the guest, and cocked his head.
He was the first to die. The blade struck the man in the belly. Saburo lifted the screaming man off the ground and threw him to the side, roaring all the while. Two warriors rushed him. He struck low, slicing at their ankles. He finished them both off as they squirmed feet-less on the ground. The remaining servants and guests squirmed and cried in the corners of the room, desperately clawing at the walls. He smashed a warrior’s head in with his mace, and plunged his dagger sideways through the neck of the other. His feet sloshed on the once white carpet, now soaked in blood. Splatter covered nearly every inch of the walls and ceilings. Saburo himself was drenched in red, his mask wet with a fresh, crimson layer.
The others kept screaming. But no one heard them. They were too far from the main hall, the noise of the celebration drowning them out. They pleaded, horrified. He reached behind his back, and took out his saw. He stabbed, hacked and sliced. The serrated edge burrowed deep into their skin, like the teeth of a wild animal, ripping pink flesh from bone.
Once the screams ended, a pair of footsteps rushed into the hallway.
“What in the…” one voice said, stricken by the horrific sight before them.
“You…” the second hesitated, “You there! Halt and surrender!”
Saburo simply stood, blood dripping from the tips of his fingers. There they were. Those voices from the swamp.
“The House will be pleased!”
“I told you eight of us would be enough!”
He knew he had recognized them. Ken and Jiro. They were the ones who had found him, and they had been the ones to take him out. It was almost poetic.
Slowly, he turned to face them.
“Is that…” Jiro exclaimed, in disbelief, “Saburo?!”
“You… you should be dead!” Ken shouted.
Behind his mask, Saburo was smiling. But they had no idea.
“Is he wearing…?”
“Run!”
They never got the chance. Saburo rushed them, and knocked them both off the ground. He prepared his blade, but stopped himself. For them, Saburo opted for something else instead. Slowly, he reached for his wooden club as Ken and Jiro both squirmed.
One hit after the other. He kept on hitting, until their faces were caved in. Reduced to bloody mush. He made sure they felt fear. He made sure they screamed.
When he was done, he didn’t bother cleaning his weapons. He exited the hallway, and headed for the main hall.
The rest of the palace awaited.
The House would not be pleased.
