Kato’s boots squelched in the dirt turned mud with blood. He flicked the blade of his long katana, thick red drops spattering noisily on the ground. He swung around in place, checking the area for survivors. From his hilltop vantage he had a good view of things. No one was left from his cohort. Neither were any remaining from the enemy. All in all a win. At least as far as he was concerned.
In the distance he watched his men rout the opposition. He smiled with pride. They weren’t “his” men really. He had no right to command them—that honor belong to the daimyo for whom they all worked—but he had formed the small army for this battle. He’d handpicked the team from the surrounding domains within his daimyo’s influence. The victory that day was as much his as anyone else’s.
One last impediment. A squad of opposition forces stood between him and his men. They’d watched him drop a few score of their well-armored samurai warriors, but even so, when they saw him standing there unscathed, they began to advance on him, vengeance in their hearts, burning in their eyes.
This was the only part of his job Kato liked. The moment when he could launch into fighting—pure, unadulterated expression of will. No responsibility except to fuse his arm to his blade and make contact with the enemy. He grinned, cheeks pressing into the cool face guard.
Left hand on his scabbard to keep it from bouncing. His right hand spun around the ornate handle of the sword to take it in an underhand grip—better for running. His knees bent and his body leaned forward and he blasted out of the mud and down the hill, a war cry boiling out of his throat.
The enemy grew in sight. With firm ground underfoot he decided on a bit of shock-and-awe. He knocked his helmet off—the heaviest part of his armor—and cut away the thigh guards tied to his breastplate. His underhand grip hid the length and position of his blade and as he reached the men he erupted from the ground, snapped the sword out, driving it through the throat and into the chest of the fighter in front of him, and leveraged over, flipping with acrobatic ease over their heads.
He landed before the men could turn and he swept the blade along their legs, cutting them to stumps. He backed away from that group, saving them to finish off later—they wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He’d been able to take the first bunch by surprise, but the last dozen or so would require a more conventional approach. He stood and set his feet. His hands found their proper place on the handle, honed by years of practice.
He remembered something indistinct, something composite of many, many nights. Fluorescent light in an ancient space. The wood was warm with footwork. In an alcove outside the sliding doors was a trim suit with a dark green tie, all neatly folded in a pile. Inside, a score of students in navy blue hakama knelt on the ground. In the muggy night outside it was the twenty-third century, full of neon and exhaust and asphalt and the mad alienation of a workforce without purpose. Inside, it was all the ages of Japan tied together with the thread of martial spirit since the first swordsman had begun to pass his knowledge down, each swing of the bamboo shinai an expression of survival, of humanity. Only the suffuse cries of cicadas blanketed the past and the present together.
Those nights, identical and unique at once, came to him on the battlefield. Every bamboo-sword swing built on the past, they made their home in this steel-sword moment. Kato centered the tip on his next opponent and scanned the rest out of the corner of his eyes, waiting for movement.
He could wait all day if he needed, but he knew they would attack first, and in doing so expose their weakness.
Ah. There we go.
From the right. This one had never had any training. He lifted his sword too high, too blindly. Too slow. Kato’s right foot slid wide and he brought the broad edge of his blade to bite into the gut of his wild attacker. One to his left took the opportunity, thinking Kato distracted and exposed, but he knew it was coming. His balance was perfectly spread and he snapped back to center, in position to drive the point into the heart of the next man.
They both screamed, clutching their guts, and fell to the ground. Good performances.
Kato took the initiative on the next go-round. He snapped forward—neck shot. A well-done gurgle rose bubbling out of the man. He parried with his scabbard to the left as he cut right. Then back left for the man on hold. Terrible stuff out of that last guy. Screams too articulate and obscene. Over the top, really.
Kato worked his way through the rest of them, one by one, until they were all prostrate on the ground.
“Good fight, everyone,” he said, kneeling down to wipe his blade clean on the sleeves of one fallen enemy. “I definitely got lucky a few times in there.” When he’d died, he was sixth dan. Luck had nothing to do with it. But no need to crush their spirits. It was all for fun really.