“Ishmael-san?” Yoshitsune’s voice finally reached my ears.
Vision returned to my eyes and the gray sky loomed above to impassively greet me. My mind reflexively closed those annoying fucking boxes that clouded my vision. I heard Yoshitsune shift on the sand and stride towards me. Her hand-covered face loomed down over me. She had replaced her destroyed clothing with Uragoe’s blue armor. Even though they were different body shapes, it appeared that the item changed in dimensions to fit its new owner’s physique.
“How long have I been gone?” I asked.
My body still felt strange as I rose from where the Follies deposited me. The motion sickness from my descent slowly faded away and left only a lingering feeling of fire ants crawling around my stomach and knots in my brain.
“Just a couple minutes,” Yoshitsune answered. “Uragoe and Jarek’s bodies showed up, but you were missing. What happened to you?”
“Someone wanted to speak to me,” I answered vaguely and brushed off Yoshitsune’s concern. There was no good that could come out of telling her about those terrible beasts. “Nothing that we need to be worried about.”
Yoshitsune looked as though she wished to press further, but let it go with a long exhale. She turned from me and walked towards the shore of the nearest tar lake. Bound near the lapping waves were Uragoe and Jarek. Jarek, the first to die and in a far better condition than his partner, had already revived. He wriggled and strained against the chain bindings like a worm on a fish hook.
“It’s good that I returned quickly,” I commented as I loomed over Uragoe’s reforming skull. “I didn’t want to miss this.”
“What do you mean?” Yoshitsune asked curiously. “I want you to throw him in the tar lake before he revives so we can finally leave this awful place.”
“That’s it?” I asked with a tinge of disgust in my voice as though I had just eaten a bitter dessert. “This person betrayed you, stole your father’s belongings, and left you to rot at the bottom of a tar lake and this is all you are going to do in response? You can slice him over and over again to your heart’s content. There are so many strange potions in the shop. There might be one that will dissolve his organs from the inside or make his blood feel like lava. Just hit him until he turns to paste.”
Yoshitsune gave a surprised expression at my admonishment. She looked down at Uragoe’s body. Her fists clenched and sparks of anger crossed her visage like the menacing waves before a storm. My teeth flashed in expectation that my suggestions triggered some sort of creativity within her.
However, she released her tension and sighed. Exhaustion rippled across her body and echoed through the wasteland.
“You’re probably right, Ishmael-san,” Yoshitsune admitted. “But, now that I killed him with my own strength and recovered my belongings, I find the fires of my anger extinguished. I just want him gone forever. I’m satisfied.”
It seemed that Yoshitsune would not transform into a kindred spirit. The tides of rage would not sweep her away to create something more brutal. There was no love of the kill that lingered within her. I could only be so disappointed. At least she managed to end things through her own hands and efforts.
“It’s your revenge,” I replied with a shrug. “What do you want done with the bear?”
Yoshitsune stared at the silent Jarek. Her fingers wriggled with calm deliberation. If I was not going to witness a violent punishment to Uragoe, I expected even less for this muscle-headed afterthought.
“I do have one idea that may be suitable to your tastes, Ishmael-san,” Yoshitsune declared. “Jarek, if you wish to avoid Uragoe’s fate, you must betray him.”
“How?” Jarek asked.
“Even if I throw him into the lake with these bindings, it still does not guarantee he will remain there for long,” Yoshitsune said and gestured to herself as an example of how this plan had already failed. “If you walk into the lake and bury him in the deepest part, I will have your body retrieved. We will tie this chain around you. Pull on it twice hard when the deed is done and we will pull you out.”
Jarek’s eyes quickly moved between Yoshitsune and the burbling tar. No matter what he chose, he was still going to burn at least once.
I didn’t like it; the offered deal was far too lenient. There were too many ways for the bear to betray us and help Uragoe without our knowledge. I know that, if I took the deal, I would kill myself in the shallows and bide my time until I could escape again. And I would not rest until I had tracked down those that did this to me and squeezed every last gasp of life from them. Yoshitsune surely had to see that as well.
“I will take your offer,” Jarek grunted.
“Yoshitsune,” I began to say.
“Remove his restraints and tie a chain around his waist,” Yoshitsune ordered before I could air my concerns.
I sighed and did as I was told. If it blew up in Yoshitsune’s face later, she would have to bail herself out. Carefully, I undid Jarek’s restraints. My body was tense in preparation to slay the bear a second time. However, he remained perfectly compliant. I understood that he was outnumbered, but not attempting to flee at all bothered me.
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“He would do the same to me,” Jarek said to me, detecting my distrust in this situation.
“That’s right,” Yoshitsune agreed with a nod. “You knew that he would betray you one day. Now it’s his turn to know the feeling of being cast aside.”
Another minute went by before Uragoe revived. As soon as his eyes snapped open, Yoshitsune planted her blade into his head. A small gust began to form in the sand and Yoshitsune twisted the blade, offering a small shock of lightning for good measure. The pain caused him to stop and finally take stock of his situation. His eyes widened as he saw Jarek free of his shackles.
“Jarek!” Uragoe called out to his companion. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I was inspired to more perfectly recreate what you had done to me, Uragoe,” Yoshitsune informed. “Jarek has chosen to make your suffering far worse in exchange for a lessening of his own sentencing. It appears that you are the dead weight this time.”
“No!” Uragoe screamed as Jarek moved towards him.
With a loud cracking sound, Yoshitsune delivered a strong bolt of lightning into Uragoe’s head. The force of the power popped his eyes from his skull and caused a large hole to form in his temple. He only was permitted to live long enough to know of his fate. When he revived again, he would know the true reasons behind his heightened suffering.
Yoshitsune continued to hack off pieces of Uragoe’s body with careless swings of her blade like a kid with a machete to a tree branch. A foot was sent flying several feet behind her. His damaged head was lopped off and sent in a different direction. Only when it was just his bound torso and arms did she signal to Jarek.
Jarek scooped up Uragoe’s remains in the fuzzy arms. He stared at the lake for a moment as he tried to calm himself down. After a loud gulp, he stepped into the lake. His legs sizzled and he yelped in pain as though he jumped into a deep fryer.
He hastened his movements and quickly descended beneath the surface. The chain began to unravel further and further; each link slid across my fingers in case he tried something. The chain fully extended and grew taut. I could feel it pull and twist from Jarek’s presumed digging. Suddenly, the chain went slack.
“He died,” I said to Yoshitsune. “Didn’t tug either.”
“Wait until he comes back to life,” Yoshitsune said. “If he hurries, he can revive and finish the job before Uragoe can piece himself back together.”
After a couple minutes, the chain began swaying again from activity on the other side. A minute further until I received two strong tugs on the chain.
I hesitated to retrieve Jarek from the depths. My suspicion prevented me from trusting that I would not just retrieve our enemy with fresh anger and the element of surprise. As much as I wanted to leave them for dead, it was Yoshitsune who held the power in the completion of the contract.
“He tugged twice, but I can send the chain back to my inventory, if you want,” I suggested. “We can be rid of both of them without much worry.”
“No,” Yoshitsune rejected with a shake of her head. “I understand that you are concerned about me, but I cannot allow myself to be a dishonest person. Even if I am condemned to a realm of eternal suffering, I must not sacrifice all that makes up my dignity and stoop so low. If that choice harms me, then so be it.”
Oh, Yoshitsune, what value is your remaining humanity? There were no avenues out of Hell. This is an irreversible consequence that offers no benefit to act in a more becoming way. God is not watching nor will He take pity upon us. To show this softness unnecessarily is to bare your neck to the wolves and pray that they lick it.
But, at the same time, I was interested if she could say the same words if things turned. To remain rigid would be commendable, handicaps aside. I would get plenty of opportunities to continue to watch.
Dutifully, I extracted Jarek from his black prison. I saw the surface begin to part in the wake of the large frame that slid just below the surface. Despite my own beliefs, Jarek’s soaking body was the only thing that I extracted out of the depths.
Jarek trembled and groaned from the pain as he pushed himself further up the beach with belabored motions. His health sat well below a quarter and it appeared that he did not have any potions he could summon to alleviate the pain. He would have to endure the terrible agony until the timers for the debuffs expired; if he managed to survive it.
“So long, Jarek,” Yoshitsune said to the bear. “I hope that our paths will not meet again.”
Jarek only wheezed his farewell before falling still. Only his labored breathing signified that he still clung to his weakened life.
image [https://i.imgur.com/MI5W85z.jpeg]
Quest!
Murder Mitsuhide (Complete)
Congratulations! You have slaughtered the traitor and satisfied the discarded samurai’s craving for vengeance.
Reward: Loyalty.
Until you reach Level 20, the other party cannot refuse to obey a command you give them or knowingly cause you harm, directly or indirectly. Enjoy your new pet.
I narrowed my eyes at the final line of the message. Who was writing these?
“You have given up your autonomy in exchange for this revenge, Yoshitsune,” I commented with surprise at the magnitude of the sacrifice. “Are you sure that it was worth it to make yourself subservient to accomplish it?”
“Whether or not it was worth it resides in your hands, Ishmael-san,” Yoshitsune answered matter-of-factly.
I chuckled at Yoshitsune’s transparency. It was all up to me whether or not she was miserable or satisfied under my command. To have someone dependent on my calls was not a foreign feeling. My senior year of high school, I was the defensive captain on the football field. Any adjustments I called out to the play, the rest of my teammates had to mindlessly obey. I always treated the unquestioning types the best. Trust should be met with trust after all.
And, despite my musing of the value of remaining humanity, my experiences, to this point, have all pointed towards the necessity of cooperation and mutual trust. The ones that used and discarded found themselves dragged from their home or buried by their former allies.
“By the way, why do you call me Ishmael-san?” I asked. “My name is just Ishmael.”
“We add honorifics to the end of the names of those that we respect,” Yoshitsune explained. “Since you are the one that saved me, you deserve respect that I no longer extend to others.”
“Do as you’d like then,” I dismissed, figuring that debating the point would get me nowhere. “You know that I am not a man that is deserving of respect. I hope that you do not grow to regret placing such honor upon me.”
“That’s for me to regret on my own,” Yoshitsune responded. “Now that you are in charge, where are we going?”
I looked around. Impenetrable mountains sat behind us, tar lakes stretched out impossibly to either side of us, and a mass of mist and fog waited for us on the horizon.
“There is nowhere else but forwards."