Kosuke

“Don’t worry, my Emperor. The guards will stop them before they get anywhere close to the Throne.” Kosuke didn’t believe the words that came out of his mouth. But keeping the Emperor calm in these next moments was instrumental to what was to come.

The attack came swiftly and suddenly. Hundreds of soldiers taking up arms inside the city. Within only a few hours, a majority of the guard had been overrun.The sounds of battle raged floors under them. As others came unnerved, Kosuke approached the Second Chosen and whispered. “Are preparations complete?”

“Yes, Captain. But…” he hesitated a moment. “Are you sure about this?”

“If I am being honest with you, there’s very little I have been sure about these last ten years, save that my daughter needs to survive this.” He sighs. “Get going. You can’t be in the throne room when she arrives.”

The Second Chosen nodded and slipped through a side door. Kosuke set him out of his mind and focused on the main door. Behind him, the Emperor worriedly spoke. “You are sure that no one will make it here? Perhaps we should retreat to my quarters and give the Guard more space to work with.”

“There is nothing to worry about, my Emperor,” Kosuke assured him. “Everything is going as it should.” Even if it wasn’t the truth that Ichiya would have wanted, it was still technically the truth. Kosuke had tried to minimize how much he had to lie to the Emperor in all this. Even as he briefly glanced over to the corner where Masashi stood, as calm as he always was. Kosuke took a breath. If this didn’t work, he quietly swore that he would haunt Masashi to the Hells.

The sound of combat raged ever closer. A slow breath. His katana escaped its Saya. Slowly, he began tapping into the inner Water that flowed through his body. If he had one regret, it’s that he never had a chance to teach Aura to his daughter. To be able to manipulate the dominant element of one’s body was an important skill, and leaving that hole in her training pained him terribly. But the time to walk away from this path had passed over two years ago. He would have to leave that to others now.

The large wooden doors shattered open. Stepping into the room, the imposing form of Takahashi Makoto loomed large. She wore brilliant lacquered armor of bright yellows, golds, and pinks, and on her back was a No-Dachi that was large enough to deserve its own classification. As she lifted her helmet off, her sneer caused the few remaining members of the Court in attendance to flinch. They had never seen violence of the like that the Imperial General could bring.

“This is as far as you go, Makoto-san,” his voice was cool, commanding. If he was going to play the part of the loyal guard, then he had to sell it enough for everyone in the room to believe. “This foolishness ends now.”

Makoto approached him, staring him down with an intensity that even caught him off guard for a moment. She always was intimidating, but in this moment even he had to admit that her Aura had grown beyond what he might have expected. If this treachery had been attempted even five years ago, it never would even have gotten this far.

“Stand aside, Captain.” Her voice carried the venom of her hatred for him. “The Emperor dies today, and you die with him if you do not move.”

He quirked his lips into a smile. The sort he knew would get quite a rise out of her. “The Emperor will not fall so long as I live. I will tell you again; this foolishness ends now.” His final words spoken, he charged forward.

He surged his Aura into his legs, a rushing waterfall of power to complement position two. His arcing slash came down, aimed just to the right of her neck. Makoto brought her gauntleted left hand up and parried the attack, swinging her right hand straight for his face. It was said that the Imperial General was capable of punching someone’s head clean off, and as he stepped to the side and felt the change in air pressure from the force of her punch, he certainly believed it. He retreated quickly, avoiding further counterattack as she pulled her giant of a weapon and swung at the space he had just occupied.

Makoto held her weapon high in the air, and she slammed her feet into the tatami below. In her own way, she seemed like a mountain; stoic and unmovable. The contrast almost made Kosuke laugh. He dropped his own blade down to position three, pointed low and towards the ground. As the two stood staring across from each other, he considered his next move. This could not be a protracted engagement. The longer it went, the more lives that were lost. So he resolved to make a move that would push this towards its climax. His blade slipped under the title of tatami in front of him, and in a sudden flick, he tossed it up towards her. Makoto responded reflexively, slashing down and cutting the mat in half. Kosuke pushed his Aura into his legs again and dashed to her right, slicing her weapon towards her throat with a powerful arc aided by his Aura. She barely managed to back step enough that he was able to trace a line against her neck. Even an inch closer, and he may well have caught her neck.

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And yet, despite his expectation, she didn’t push to try to retake an advantage. Instead, she retreated, her grin not faltering as she glared down at him again. He backed up, replacing himself between her and Emperor Ichiya. It was, in its own way, unnerving to see someone that he had known for her bull headedness and ease of anger stop and act so patiently. He’d hoped to make this quick, to provoke her for the response that he wanted. It seemed she wasn’t quite willing to give it to him so easily.

So he took a deep breath and moved to position four. If she wasn’t going to take the difficult openings, he was going to have to provide one that she could not decline. To his surprise, she set herself into position one. He pushed his Aura, but instead of his legs, all of the feeling of flow pushed into his arms. A rush of water brought his blade at her in a horizontal arc. She again parried and stepped back. His blade started to move up to block, but in that moment, he let go of his aura. The slowing of his rhythm gave her the opening she needed. She moved to position two very briefly, and slashed down into his torso.

It took a moment to process what exactly was happening. He recognized that he was falling, but he didn’t immediately register that his waist and legs were falling in a different direction. He registered her walking past him, certainly. But his arms refused to obey him when he tried to reach out to stop her. He hit the ground with a very sudden thud. His eyes scanned as best as they could, losing focus as they had. The sight of fleeing courtiers was so distracting. So much chaos over one man’s death. He saw the Throne that Makoto approached. He saw the fear in the Emperor’s eyes. But it was distant, far away. For a moment, his focus locked on the draconic statue sitting in the corner, over the entrance to a secret tunnel that was only known to a select few people. A pair of grey eyes stared at him in horror. He tried his best to focus on them, but he was fading. But recognition soon flashed on his face. Himari.

His heart sank. Were the safeguards simply not enough to keep her away? Did Masashi lie to him about keeping her safe from the violence in the city? Weakly, he mouthed the word ‘run’ at that pair of eyes. The entrance started to push up, and a moment of horror burned his chest over the pain of having just lost his bottom half. But only a moment later, it fell still again, and that pain subsided. His impaired focus moved towards the throne in time to catch Makoto’s blade lifted high into the air.

“With this act, let the reign of the Ichiya end. So begins the Dynasty of Takahashi.” Her voice was venomous as she slashed through the Throne and the Emperor both. The seat of the throne fell backwards, and Emperor Ichiya XL joined it barely a moment later.

Darkness slowly began to engulf Kosuke’s vision, but he heard a tapping of feet closing to him. He braced himself, prepared for that same large blade to pierce his heart. But the voice that he heard instead was that of Goro Masashi.

“I am sorry, my old friend. Thank you, for choosing this sacrifice. I promise it will not be in vain, even if I do wish that you could be here to see how this play will end.” A sympathetic hand on his shoulder. A reminder of a time before they stood at the Emperor’s side. A time when they were just friends. “I promise, though, the actors are in place, and a better world shall come in the aftermath of the strife we have created.”

Kosuke could not respond. He barely had the air in his lungs to suck in labored breaths. He gave a weak nod, acknowledging that Masashi should do what had to come next.

Masashi rose, bowing before the self proclaimed Empress. “My lady. It does seem that Kosuke-san still draws breath. Would you like me to put him out of his misery?”

“No,” the graveled voice of Makoto responded. “His death is on my hands, and no one else’s.” As he heard her approach, he closed his eyes and concentrated whatever Aura he had remaining in preventing him from bleeding out quite yet. He refused to give her the satisfaction of thinking of her with his last few moments.

His thoughts first moved to his wife, Kimika. Their meeting so many years ago had once been the happiest day of his life. To this day, he still thought she was the most beautiful woman in all of Nishibi. He wished that he could have spent just one more day with her in a life that hadn’t been spent chasing the enemies of the Emperor. She deserved so much better than a man who had put himself on a collision course with an ignoble death just by the birthright of being the eldest of his name.

His thoughts moved to his young sons, Souka and Jiro. Souka… he must be in his third year of schooling. He’d never shown talent with the blade after all, and had been sent to learn the scribe’s path instead. It was better for him this way. And Jiro… he hoped the young boy wouldn’t remember him enough to miss him all that much. Kosuke had acted the part of the family tyrant for so long…

That thought brought him to Himari. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Masashi had planned for her. He had steadfastly refused to say for so long. She had so much potential, and he had only hoped that whatever plans were there would give her room for a long and happy life.

The blade began to arc down, and in his own mind he prayed. He prayed for Souka and Jiro to have happy lives filled with laughter, joy, and love. He prayed for Kimika to find new love, and to not be too stricken with grief. And he prayed for Himari to find a life outside the manipulations of Advisers, away from Emperors and Samurai. Away from the Chosen.

The blade struck his neck with powerful finality. And as he felt the last of his lifeblood drain away, Sato Kosuke prayed that he would never meet his ancestors.