"Izanami?" I whisper. It's a familiar name. Father told me about her, the creation goddess who created our land from the waters. "I thought you were just a story."

"We're all just stories," she says in her chiming voice. "You and me, the stars and the seas, and all the beings who inhabit them. The only question is: where do you want your story to end?"

I see the Emperor again. I see his katana, feel it run through me, and I shiver. "Am I dead?"

"I'm afraid so," she says. Brightness shivers all around her pale form. Her dark hair swirls like it's come alive; she seems almost fish-like, as though the light were water, and she was swimming. But her face is gray, the same color as soot. I wonder if she'd painted it with ashes. Her lips spread to reveal sharp teeth like the demons I used to dream of.

"If I'm dead, how can I be your samurai?" And what does that even mean?

"The balance between life and death is broken." She raises her long fingers to brush hair out of her face. The white strip of cloth flutters around her chest, and she sets it back in place. "The Emperor holds my beloved hostage. His longevity is ill-gotten. His aura, his strength, it's all stolen, trapped in his katana."

The lightning! That must've been... but who was her beloved in the stories? Izanagi? But even as I try to work out what she's saying to me, as I try to remember the bedtime stories father loved to tell, a strange calm keeps tugging at my thoughts. I've been ignoring it, but it's growing stronger and stronger. A gentle shushing that says it's time to rest. That I can close my eyes and sleep. I feel like I do at the end of a long day's work. After the fishing, cooking, and cleaning is done, and I'd bathed, my muscles exhausted.

The light swaddles me like a blanket on a cool night. I know I'm dying, that this is my death, but it's so comforting.

Izanami rushes into my face, the light swirling around her. Her nose presses against mine. Her bloodshot eyes stare so deeply into my soul. Her fingers tug on the torn part of my robes, and she scratches my belly where the Emperor's katana had run me through.

"I can feel him," she whispers, her voice a gentle breeze. "My beloved's power flows through that cursed blade. It took your life." Her arm loops around my waist and she draws me closer into an embrace. The surprising intimacy jolts me out of my sinking feeling. She's so warm.

II should be afraid. This is my death. I'm speaking to a goddess. But I only feel comfort in her presence.

"I am the goddess of death now," says Izanami. "I offer myself to you. Accept and become my samurai."

"Why me?" I mumble, unable to decide which of her eyes to focus on. Blood seems to move through each eyeball.

"Because you are promising," she says. "Because you spoke up. Because I have little choice." Her body twists around me; she's elongating, her torso and legs stretching, like a serpent. "I have sent countless souls after the Emperor in the hopes of freeing my beloved. I have tried and tried again, waiting and aching. It is agony watching someone you love suffer."

Her hair trails all over my body, drifting and flowing. It feels like I'm getting tangled in seaweed. I think about her pain. I think about watching father work tirelessly, all he'd sacrificed to raise me. I think about his failing eyes and the way the Emperor had forced him to eat a raw fish head.

How the Emperor cut down my village.

"Why can't you stop him?" I ask.

"I cannot express myself in the mortal world," she whispers. "I died a very long time ago, so I may only act through a vessel. And I sense your desire for vengeance burning as furious as mine."

I shudder. Her lips brush my earlobes. She holds her palm against my chest, applying pressure to my heart.

"If you are my samurai, you will tower over the Emperor's false followers. They have no true power of their own. Only what he provides them."

"What does that mean?"

"It means his power is limited, and what I offer you isn’t bound by the same limitations. You will be whole." Her words ring through me again, louder, like someone had struck a bell with all their might. "But you are dying. The threads of your mortal life have nearly come undone. All I ask is if you are willing to exact vengeance?"

"What if I fail?"

"What if you succeed?"

I swallow hard. I think about all the anger. All the fishing we'd done and all the fish we'd shipped away. All the nights I went hungry, and the nights I knew father didn't eat so me, Aiko and Kota could eat. There never seemed to be enough rice. Enough clean water. Enough cloth to mend clothes.

I think about how the Emperor and his men burnt down our village. They were supposed to protect us. I think about father, and how he’d traded with the mainland. Why would he do such a thing?

If he hadn’t, if he and the other fisherman had just done their jobs...

But the Emperor was clearly a horrid person. He held a god imprisoned. He punished the entire village...

Maybe father did what he did because it was the right thing to do. Maybe father always saw through the Emperor’s mythology; that the Living God was a twisted, cowardly man.

I trust father. I trust his actions. And he's still alive. I can save him.

"Yes," I say quietly, my eye squeezed shut. I feel the katana piercing me again, twisting as the Emperor cut through my insides. "I want vengeance."

As soon as the words leave my lips, Izanami envelops me. Her arms and legs wrap firmly around mine. Her chest presses to my chest so that our hearts beat in unison. Her face to my face. Her skin shifts into the scales of a fish, and her eyes grow wider and wider, the blood expanding until everything is red. Then we merge. She and I become one; I feel her slip into my entire being; I hear the toll of a bell, ringing throughout a stary sky; warmth spreads through me like sunrise, and then my eyes open.

Smoke fills my lungs when I suck in a breath. Someone is dragging me through the village, holding me by my feet, fingernails digging into my ankles. Where are my sandals?

It's one of the samurai. His red armor shines brightly, and he hasn’t noticed that I’m awake. They'd started another fire. I'm on my back, my blood-soaked robes trailing through dirt and ashes. My head bounces on the ground. He's dragging me toward the flames, and there's a stench that makes me want to gag. They're burning the dead. They must be the samurai left behind on clean-up duty. The others must’ve left. The Emperor must’ve left.

The samurai drops my feet to yell at someone. I don't understand their words. Sound rings through my head, I can hardly think. But I blink away the blurriness. I try to concentrate. I watch two of the samurai hoist a woman's body, holding her by her shoulders and legs, her robe torn and blood-soaked. When her head falls back, I recognize Mrs. Nakashima, and nearly choke on a wail.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Her gray hair trails along the ground as they carry her over. One of her arms is twisted so that her elbow sticks out all wrong, and dried blood crusts the side of her head. Her eyes are open. When the samurai turn Mrs. Nakashima, preparing to swing her into the fire, I see the deep gash across her chest and stomach.

She was harmless. She was a sweet old woman who loved taking care of her flowers and painting with watercolor. She sang to me when I was young, when father would go fishing, and I was afraid he wouldn't make it back safely.

Why? Tears fill my eyes.

Why?

They toss her into the fire, and sparks shoot up in an angry eruption, as though the flames couldn't believe they'd killed her. Then I see Aiko. They hold him unceremoniously by his fishing robes, like they're disgusted at the thought of touching him, and throw him on top of Mrs. Nakashima.

A purple streak of lightning snaps in front of my face. Rage swells, a rising wave inside my head, and more lightning trails up and down my arms. I remember Izanami. I remember what she'd offered, that I am her samurai now.

My hand goes to my belly. To the gash where the emperor had cut me. But the skin is healed. There's no injury, only drying blood. How long had I been dead? My palm slides up to my chest, and my eyes grow wide.

I thrust my fingers into my neck, so quickly that it hurts, but there's no heartbeat. My heart's not beating. I want to scream, but I don't. I bite my tongue. The samurai march back and grab another body. One of the fishermen. They'll come for me next, and I'm sure other samurai are collecting more bodies. If I'm going to do something, if I’m going to fight or run, I have to do it now.

But if I'm a samurai now, then where's my katana? Izanami said her beloved was trapped inside the Emperor's cursed blade, so does that mean I have one too? I feel around for my fish-cutting knife, but more purple lightning flashes in my hands. Something prompts my mind, something sharp. My hand moves on its own and grabs air.

There's something in the air. A handle. My fingers wrap around it, and I pull. A katana slides out from thin air as though I’m pulling it from a scabbard. Its long metallic face glints in the fire, and it's surprisingly heavy. I almost drop it.

Will I even be able to use it? I've messed around with bamboo sticks before. I'd play around with Aiko and Kota and sometimes sparred with father, but it wasn't anything more than a game. We weren't allowed to have true masters train us; all the warriors had been taken to fight in the Emperor's battles.

But everything feels strange. Not just my quiet heart, but my muscles, my body. I feel like one of the fish, taken out of the water, forced into another world. The samurai throw the fisherman into the fire, and I climb to my feet. The air burns in my lungs; I can't look at the bodies in the flames.

One of the samurai shouts and points at me. The other draws his blade.

"I thought he was dead!" cries the first.

"He must be!" The second's face twists with horror. I wonder what he thinks I am. I wonder how I look. They still think I'm a boy.

I can't bring myself to speak. My tongue feels heavy. My eyes hyper-focusing, the world of burning and corpses blurring around me, stinging my senses. My heart's not beating, but I swear it's pounding. My blood rushes through me like floods during monsoon season. The samurai seem shocked, almost petrified. They must think I'm some kind of spirit. A demon come back from the dead.

Purple lightning shivers down the length of my katana. I hold it with two hands. Already, its weight feels familiar. Capable. It’s an extension of myself. I can feel the power emanating from it; I can feel that power becoming mine. I take the first step of my second life.

The samurai rush at me, shouting. Another one comes running out of the dark, his sandals nearly silent on the ground. I can hear him. I can hear all of them. Their breaths. Their bodies moving through the air. I turn.

The katana seems to have a mind of its own. It hungers for them just as I hunger for vengeance. My arms rise with ease, it's like muscle memory from a dream. Premonition. I know by the way they run, by the way they carry themselves, that these samurai are weak. The Emperor left them here to clean up the mess. They're not true warriors. They're cowards clinging to the Emperor’s shadow, desperate for power.

My katana cuts the first one down. I sidestep as he tumbles to the ground and dodge the blade of the second samurai. Then I parry the third as he rushes me from behind. Sparks fly through the air. I feel his breath. I feel his surprise. He hadn’t expected me to turn.

I'm surprised too. Izanami's strength rushes through me, and I swipe so quickly with the blade that I cut through his armor with ease. He stumbles back, guts spilling from the wound, his weapon forgotten on the ground. “Demon...” he hisses, dropping to his knees.

The wind whistles as the remaining samurai swings his blade with a ferocious cry. But the anger in his voice is nothing compared to the anger burning through my head. I knock his katana back with mine, the same way I used to block Aiko’s attacks with bamboo. It throws the samurai off balance, his eyes go wide, and then I bury my blade in his chest, running him through the same way the Emperor killed me. He cries weakly as I pull my katana out, and the fight is over.

The fire crackles. The samurai crawl in the dirt, clutching their wounds, gurgling for their final breaths. One of them can still talk. “Spare me,” he whispers.

“You killed my friends,” I hiss. “You killed Mrs. Nakashima. Aiko. Kota. Their souls can never rest until-” I plunge the katana into his head, right through the center so the tip bursts out the other side and hits the ground.

He doesn't even cry out. There's no shudder. No gasp. He's just dead. Purple electricity courses out of him, snapping and spiraling up my blade. Something stirs between my rage, a number.

+8 souls

But before I give it a second thought, I stab the second one through the heart. The third one, the one I disemboweled, dies on his own, whimpering. More lightning bursts out of these two bodies and shoots into my blade. This time I feel a surge of energy, and two more things fill my head:

+12 souls

+6 souls

What do these mean? Why are they in my head? I glance around the village center, at the bodies burning in the flames, at the bodies lying in pools of blood. And then, I hear them. The souls... I’ve absorbed the souls of the dead.

Voices flutter through my head. Wails and screams, whispering. Lots and lots of hushed whispering. I clamp my hands over my ears. My katana falls away, vanishing in a stream of purple sparks, but it's hard to care about that when I can hear Mrs. Nakashima's voice.

She's screaming. She's begging for mercy. They are torturing her! I drop to my knees. I can feel her suffering. I can feel her anguish. They killed her slowly.

Why?

I can hear Aiko. He's asking where he is. He's lost. He's begging for his brother. I can hear Megumi too. One of these samurai had cut her down. She's calling for her parents. She's asking if they're alright. I can hear elders crying. Whispering. Pleading with one another, but nobody has answers. They want to know where their children are. They want to know if they're safe.

People from my village. People from elsewhere. There are languages I don't understand, but their agony cuts through me worse than the Emperor's blade. And then I hear the samurai's voices. They're talking to me too. Shouting at me, and I can't help but scream again. Purple lightning erupts from my body, and I throw up.

I hear voices, but these aren't inside my head. More samurai appear, their armor gleaming. Their katanas drawn. Shouting things at me.

I don't care what you have to say.

One of the samurai seems bigger than the others. He steps forward, carrying his katana with more confidence as I wait on my knees, my chest heaving from the retching. This one’s scarier. He has a much stronger presence, a menacing aura that rises like steam from a fresh bowl of rice. I can almost see it, a purple haze. Purple smoke. The souls. Those must be the souls of the people he’s killed.

And in my head, there’s another message.

Rika (samurai of Izanami)

Grade: Bronze 12

Points available: 2.9 (29 souls)

-

Strength: 7.4

Stamina: 6.6

Agility: 8.2

Observation: 9.0

Vitality: 4.6

Harmony: 5.0

The souls I claim... through killing... I can apply them to the numbers. And the numbers represent aspects of myself. I can enhance myself. But somehow my numbers feel off. They seem higher than they should be. Is that because I’m dead? Or because I have Izanami’s blessing?

I watch the largest samurai approach me cautiously, his eyes furious and gleaming in the firelight. He’s saying something, shouting and barking in this angry voice. He wants me to do something... I think he wants me to surrender. But he was the one who told father to kneel. I grit my teeth. If I’m right, then the more murderous someone is, the more aura they have. The more restless souls are trapped in their forms.

Killing him would avenge many people and make me stronger. But there are three more samurai with him. They have weaker presences; one I can hardly even tell he’s there. But they’ll be trouble. I want to apply my points to Strength, but I think about fish. I think about birds. I think about how swiftly they move to evade predators.

I need to be quick if I want to survive this. I pour my points into Agility, shivering as purple lightning runs down my chest. I reach for my katana, more sparks surrounding my hands as I pull it out from thin air, and the samurai shout as they run toward me.

This time I understand them clearly.

"Demon!"