After his meeting with the steward, Gin’s fury was somewhat abated, and his approach dramatically changed. Instead of seeking out battles, he crept into the shadows and avoided skirmishes if he could. A few times, as he was hoping to escape, a guard would stumble upon him, and he would have to incapacitate him. But he was deft and quiet on his feet, and for the most part, he maneuvered back through the estate without being seen.
His rage had brought great destruction, but more importantly, great distraction. Men were sprinting down corridors and around the garden, looking confused and panicked. They had begun a halfhearted effort to extinguish the fires by diverting some of the water from the pond, but at this point, they were too far behind to catch up. Some men were barking orders, urging the men to scour the grounds, while other men ran towards the gates, fearful that if all the guards abandoned their posts, the city would erupt in chaos as well. For all they knew, they were under attack by some powerful force of men.
In some places, the flames grew so high that they would likely be seen in the valley below. This would not bode well for the city, which was already on the brink. Gin’s mind faded in and out between survival and thoughts of his daughter, mistrust, betrayal, and what he would have to do now to save her. As he ducked and crawled from cover to cover, his mind was flooded with her image, and it kept him moving, despite the intense fatigue that was growing on him.
He proceeded into the thin tree line that edged the periphery of the estate, carefully making his way towards what he imagined would be a wall that encircled the property. With the estate in disarray, he was hoping to find many holes in their vigilance and make it across without being seen. But in this alone he had miscalculated, for as the wall came into view, his heart sank. It was a high wall, and thick, not merely a barrier to stop animals from getting in and out, but one similar to those erected outside of the city, two or three times his height and wide enough to be patrolled. And there were many patrols.
Gin could see several guards with arrows notched atop the walls, while other men with drawn swords moved along the bottom. He crept silently through the trees, trying to see if he could find a place with thinner sentries. But the longer he searched, the stronger the fortifications became, as the men had begun to rally, bracing themselves from what they thought could be an outside invasion.
“This isn't good,” he whispered to himself in dismay. He began to regret his fit of rage, as it had obviously drawn far too much attention. “What good is escaping the cell if I cannot escape the prison?”
He moved again and finally came across one of the gates without a sentry. To his surprise, the gate itself was wide open. Men were coming and going at an alarming rate, but it was not actively guarded. Gin crouched low and held his breath. There would eventually be an opening. This would be his best chance. At length, the stream of soldiers finally died out, and only a few men trickled in, at ever-increasing intervals. Eventually, all traffic ceased.
“What luck!” he thought, pausing just long enough to make sure that no one else was coming.
When no one came, he bounded down the gentle slope of the tree line in the direction of the gate. But something gave him an ill feeling. This was easy, far too easy.
“There he is!” he heard someone shout, as an arrow whizzed past his head.
Gin pushed forward toward the gate, but it slammed shut in front of him, blocking his exit.
“A trap!” he hissed, as he dug in his heels to stop himself. Arrows pierced the wall in front of him, as he stopped and threw himself down to avoid them. From his new vantage, he could see several archers emerge from the tree line in formation. Two other soldiers dropped down from the top of the wall to subdue him. But he was not finished yet. Gin jumped off the ground and slashed with his sword to keep the guards off balance, and then made a break down the length of the wall. The darkness would give him some cover and would make it difficult for the archers to get a good shot, but he did not have much time. They had found him, and it was not long before they would muster a force that he could not overcome.
The shouts behind him grew louder, and here and there arrows would become lodged into the wall nearby. One arrow almost caught him in the arm, but it tore through the sleeve of his kimono.
“Is this the end?” he wondered, as he saw even more soldiers sprinting down from the tree line, fully armored with swords drawn.
“Up here!” he heard a voice shout from above, as a long pole dangled down from the top of the wall just a few feet ahead of him.
Gin looked up, but he could not see who was speaking to him. He had little choice. A volley of arrows was coming straight at him. Without stopping, he grabbed the bottom of the pole and walked his way up the wall as fast as his legs could take him. A sudden jerk from the other end was enough to pull him over, just as the volley slammed into the wall like an exploding firecracker.
He landed hard, but the fall was softened as he landed atop something or someone.
“Saru? What are you doing here?” he asked, recognizing her familiar face staring up at him.
“Rescuing you, but there’s no time! This place is crawling with soldiers!” she whispered. “Could you please get off of me?”
“Oh,” Gin muttered, realizing that their faces were but a few inches apart.
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He rolled off her and carefully looked around. Arrows continued to fly over their heads, and he could hear shouts coming from below them, but they were shielded by the sides of the wall, which came up about waist high and protected them well enough if they stayed low. Saru had acquired a hooked rope and had used it to scale the wall from the outside. They both used it to slide down and then left for the cover of the thick forest that surrounded the estate. Guards had not yet issued forth from the nearest gate, and the few archers that had been stationed at this position, Saru had already taken down. But they did not want to push their luck, so they ran until they were deep in the cover of the dense foothills, and all the noise of the chaos behind them grew silent.
When all was quiet, and they felt that they were a sufficient distance from the estate, they stopped, and fell forward, gasping for air. Gintaro was lightheaded from the final push, and breathed heavily, while Saru rose after a few moments, wiping the beaded sweat from her face. She stared down at him with a look of amazement and fear. He appeared as if he had just escaped from the fires of hell, for he was covered in blood and ash, which turned his skin black with splashes of crimson. Yet despite his gruesome appearance, he did not appear seriously injured. There was an intensity in his eyes and in his strong arms that were accented with dilated, tortuous veins. He was more alive than she had ever seen him. Saru stared at him in disbelief, unable to understand how he managed to escape.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, hesitantly.
He shook his head as he was still catching his breath.
Then, a great wave of anger flooded over her, and she thrust out her spear at him. “Why, you…you hypocrite! Wasn't it you who told me not to lose control? You told me that, right? But what about you? You’re stained with blood! How many did you kill? How many did you have to kill?”
Gin slowly rose, ignoring her outstretched weapon. “I did tell you that. But I did it for your sake. I lost my soul a long time ago. I did not want you to do the same.”
Saru bared her teeth with rage and gripped her naginata so hard that she thought it would splinter.
Gin kept his eyes on hers, still breathing heavily. “Did you rescue me just to kill me?” he asked. “Is that why you stayed behind?”
Saru was stunned by this. “Something didn’t feel right,” she stammered. “I went to find Kaya…”
“Kaya?”
“I didn’t trust her and as it turns out I was wise to trust my instincts. She sold you out, but there’s more to it than that. It took some convincing, but she eventually told me where you might be, gave me the rope, and offered me any other supplies I needed. I didn’t know if I’d get the chance to save you, but I had to try. It was still two to one after all and I do not like being in anyone’s debt.” She paused for a moment, and her lip began to quiver. “She also told me about your past. You were a member of the Kurogumi. What does that make you, an assassin? A killer? A part of me wanted you to stay in that cell and never get out. But here you are, in the likeness of an oni, the very thing I have sworn to destroy! Maybe I made the wrong decision to come back for you. Maybe Kaya was right.”
“I know you do not want what she said to be true,” Gin said softly. “But it is. I was everything that she said I was.”
“What are you now? Are you Kurogumi still?”
He gazed down at his arms, stained with the blood of all those soldiers he had slain. “I do not know what I am now. Perhaps I have become something worse. I am neither Kurogumi nor a rice farmer. I am neither a soldier nor father. Violent blood runs through my veins, yet these days I am aware of its presence, and I despair.”
At this sudden display of candor, Saru softened and lowered her weapon. “Your desire is to save your daughter. You did what you had to do to escape.”
He nodded his head but had a faraway look as if he were lost in the recesses of his mind.
“I let myself lose control,” he finally said. “I cannot let that happen again.” He then turned to face Saru and looked directly into her eyes. “Can you help me? Please help me. I do not want to be that man anymore.”
She stared back at him, weighing his sincerity. “All right,” she vowed solemnly.
“I could have never escaped alone,” he continued. “I needed a way over the wall, and you were there for me. I thank you.”
She bowed her head as an expression of accepting his thanks but was still disturbed.
A few quiet moments passed before he spoke again. “Yuki is still alive.”
“Where is she?” Saru asked, her voice rising.
“I do not know where she is now, but I know that she is not here. She never even came to this wretched city,” he paused as if the thought of it pained him. “But I think I know who is behind all of this. It is worse than I feared.”
“Tell me...wait a minute...” she said suddenly, as something had caught her attention through an opening between tree branches. Her gaze fell upon the city of Kagiminato. “Look!”
The cloudless sky, bright moonlight, and their elevated position gave them both a magnificent vista of the port city, but it was the red and orange conflagration that caught their attention.
“Fire...” Gin muttered.
“Kaya said that it was going to get ugly,” Saru whispered as if to herself.
“We need to get out of this city.”
“First, you need to wash up. If anyone sees you looking like that they’ll know right away that you were in the center of trouble. Then we can make our way back down to the city. I have a plan.” Saru said this with a nervous smile.
Gin found a shallow stream nearby, and doused himself hastily, trying to remove the layers of blood and ash that had melted onto his skin. When he had finished, they continued down the slope of the foothills, keeping as far from the road as they could, and moving cautiously, as they wanted to avoid being seen at all costs.
Eventually, they reached the edge of the city, though chaos and flame had already transformed it into a hellish scene. Soldiers and sailors clashed openly in the streets, while the elderly, women, and children fled for safety. Others did their best to quench the fires that had sprung up from the melee, but they did not seem to be winning that battle. Looters and other opportunists prowled the alleyways, slinking into abandoned or flame-consumed buildings and exiting with shining valuables.
As the pair quickly made their way through the city, no one impeded them. Indeed, no one seemed to take notice of the two strangers through all the madness. Gin could not help but feel a pang of guilt, as he beheld the city that was consuming itself. There was little else he could have done, but his escape had thrown the Kagi soldiers into confusion. This may have precipitated an attack from the gangs, which in turn may have given way to a heavy-handed response from the military. If this was truly the case, and Kaya had been able to anticipate it, she was deserving of far more caution than he had afforded her in the past. He knew she had skill in words and manipulation, but he had no idea she would go this far.
At last, they reached the docks, which were just as bad as the city’s interior. Ships were lit like pyres, and blood trails stained the sand. The two zigzagged through the seemingly endless network of wharves until they reached the easternmost segment. A small boat awaited them, and several people were crowded around it. One of them was the White Crane herself.