“What is your relationship with the old man?” I asked, when we passed beyond the Residential area and into what, based on the size of the houses around us, I assumed to be the Noble District. The streets here were also deserted, and it seemed like most residents of the city had evacuated for some reason. The houses, or mansions rather, all had walls surrounding their grounds, as well as large metal-braced wooden gates. The bit of the houses that was visible from outside the walls gave a good impression of their size and height, which were several times larger than even the largest houses in the previous district. The rooftops were made up of darkened tiles, which sloped down elegantly and seemed very familiar to me. Every now-and-then there were a few modest shrines or temples amidst the large building complexes.
After a minute-or-two of silence, Jirō responded to my query. “He’s my father. He caught me trying to rob him in the street and decided to adopt me into his family for some reason.”
The answer surprised me so much that I didn’t immediately reply, and then when I regained my composure a minute later, I didn’t feel like asking anything else, so we simply passed by the beautiful mansions, while the melody in the background continued playing.
Twenty minutes later, when the sun was making its journey towards the horizon, the red rain returned, quickly soaking through my armour, and making my usually-puffy hair stick to the sides of my face.
Jirō, who was a few metres ahead of me, stopped directly in the middle of where a street crossed ours. I quickly ran to his side, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
He raised a finger to the flat smile of his mask, indicating that I should be silent and listen. At first, I heard only the rain and the twang of the Koto and Shamisen in the background, but then the sharp metallic snap of blades colliding sang through the air. From the sound of it, it wasn’t more than two-or-three streets away.
Without warning, the gate to a nearby, walled-off mansion opened and footmen, as well as a few Samurai, all in black armour with red Higanbana[1] symbols painted on their chest plates, surged towards us, their roars like thunder.
My black edge left its scabbard and caught an incoming blade in its path, cleaving it in half and continuing straight through its wielder’s left arm, parting the armour there as though it was made of paper. I spun quickly and used the momentum to carry my edge onwards into another, his crimson blood cascading outwards like an explosion, falling back down amongst us, indistinguishable from the red rain.
I heard laughter, like that of a lunatic, and, without looking, knew from its strange muffled quality that it belonged to Jirō. Suddenly, his self-proclaimed title made sense.
While we both carved our way through the enemy forces, I had a few moments where I caught glimpses of my Guide in action. He was a whirlwind of steel, the Dao lightning-fast and lethal in his hands. It would’ve been an awestriking display, but his continuous manic and cheerful laughter was extremely off-putting, turning the sight from that of a skilful display of swordsmanship into that of a brutal slaughter. Not to mention, his ridiculous strength made him seem like a monster, as he on more than one occasion killed opponents with a single punch that shattered their bodies.
Then a different mansion gate burst open, spilling forth another wave of foes in the same black armour decorated with the red flower, pushing me further away from my Guide, who seemed to have entirely forgotten my existence and our supposed arrangement.
I let fly my Quick Draw, slicing two men cleanly in half, with my blade settling itself in a third, a Samurai wearing several layers of armour which had caught my edge within it. I panicked for a moment, as I struggled to withdraw my blade from its trap, but quick thinking had me perform my Lacerate, which turned the man currently ‘holding’ my sword into four separate chunks, and allowed me to follow up the movement with a wide slash, forcing my bloodthirsty assailants back.
As I was shoved down a side street away from my objective, I realised that my stamina would deplete before I saw an end to the enemies surrounding me, as more kept flowing in from around the district, seemingly every single Vermillion Bird warrior striking simultaneously. If they were only aiming to kill me it was kind of excessive, but I guessed that Jirō had likely been their original target, with me just getting caught up in their mess. We’d also heard fighting nearby, so the red faction was perhaps hitting several locations at once. I wondered if they’d also get to Genzō, and found it unsettling that even he had not seen this coming, despite his so-called ‘extensive’ spy network.
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When it was evident that there were far more enemies than I could possible defeat unscathed, I decided to listen to the little voice that always yelled in the back of my mind during situations like these.[2] So, with as much dignity as I could manage, I pushed off from the mob around me and hastily returned my sword to its home, then promptly put one foot in front of the other and took off in a hurry. I heard my attackers follow behind, but all their useless armour weighed them down too much and I easily made my escape due to my high ‘Movement Speed’ stat.
I turned a corner, continued straight on through a different part of the Noble District, passed many beautiful mansion-like homes, took another corner, crossed another street, and another corner, and so forth. Eventually I reached a different battle, but, to my surprise, found Red and Blue forces engaged with one another. It seemed that not just Jirō’s faction, the White Tiger, had been the Vermilion Bird’s target, but also the Azure Dragon’s hideouts that I’d seen on the map in the basement.
A group of four warriors were standing with their backs to a burning mansion, protecting some of their allies, who lay injured on the ground before a smashed-in wooden gate. Their group: a lone Samurai, barely holding back four men by himself; an archer, who wasn’t much use in these close quarters; and two inadequately-dressed ‘civilians’[3], both only wielding short, low-quality one-handed and straight shortswords that lacked a crossguard just like my own blade. Their attackers easily had five times their number, but struggled to properly utilise this advantage in the narrow street, and so, spotting an opportunity that I couldn’t simply pass up on, I flanked the black-and-red footmen, who fell before my blade with hardly any effort.
When I used my Helm-Splitter to break through the decorated helm of the Red group’s leader, the entire party started scampering away in fear. Although, to be fair, at this point most of them had already been ready to run for it, their leader being the only thing maintaining group cohesion.
The Archer nailed a few of the fleeing warriors in the back before they could escape his line-of-sight. The longbow in his hand made a beautiful sound as it let fly one arrow after another with an even, well-practiced pace. The loose fabric draped over his armour and reaching all the way to the ground like some sort of thin coat was, similar to that of the Samurai next to him, entirely blue with a white outline on the back and sleeves marking out their symbol, which was also a flower, although I didn’t recognise it.
As the Samurai approached me, he made a gesture to his men and the three of them went to see to their friends. I performed a flourish of my sword, sending a clean line of blood across the ground, where it blended in amongst the puddles of red rain and corpses. The look he gave me as I scabbarded my black edge was one of careful scrutiny, but also gratitude.
He bowed deeply before me, “You have our eternal gratitude[4] for saving us. I will personally see to it that our Master rewards you handsomely for your deed.” Hopefully this handsome reward would be enough to make up for the investment I’d made into my new cuirass.
The Archer returned to the Samurai. “Sir! Two of the men didn’t make it, and the remaining three won’t be able to run with the wounds they’ve sustained.”
“Understood. Tell the survivors to hide as best they can. We’ll have to evacuate them later.”
The Archer made a sound to indicate his understanding and returned to the men in front of the smouldering mansion compound.
The Samurai gave me that same look again, then said, “If you wish to receive your reward, we shall have to rely on you once more, lest our tongues be cut from our corpses and word of your deed becomes void. Would you kindly escort us to our Master and help us save any of our allies in trouble, should we come across them?”
“Sure. Lead the way.”
“Hanada, with me! You two,” he instructed, pointing at the ‘civilians’, “you know what to do. Alright, we’re heading out!”
A chorus of wordless one-syllable sounds echoed from his men, and the Archer ran to catch up with us as we hurried in the direction of the Marketplace. Before we rounded a corner, I looked back towards the burnt-out mansion, and saw the two suspicious ‘civilians’ now fully-clad in the enemies’ armour, one even wearing the dead Samurai leader’s former attire, smashed-in helm and all. I guessed that these men were likely far more expendable than the Samurai and Archer who I was escorting, and would soon seek out other fights, and, using their disguises, sabotage the Red faction’s forces from within.
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[1] 彼岸花, literally meaning “The Flower from the Other Shore”, but known as “Red Spider Lily” in English. It is a flower often associated with Death and the Afterlife, i.e. ‘the Other Shore’. Quite an interesting motif for an army to sport…
[2] You know, the one most sane people possess. It usually goes something like this: “Ruuuuuuuuuuun, you idiot!!!”
[3] They looked like civilians, but were clearly invested in this battle, which made me think they probably were more than just that. The terms Shinobi and Ninja immediately crossed my mind.
[4] Again, with this… If I had a penny for every time I’d heard this… well… then I’d have at least two pennies…