It seemed like all the neighbours were now out in the street. Miyo was peering out of his door way, something tugged on his sleeve and made his heart jump.

“I need my swords,” Yabona was crying. “I have to go back.”

Sai in the hall, close behind her, he had fetched up his sword again and held it tip down, which wavered slightly.

Tenderness overwhelmed Miyo. Two little souls in his care, two pin pricks of light that had come to him the dark and lead him, steadily over these last months, back into the brilliant warmth of the day. Living was not an exercise in futility, in humiliation. There was a reason to be here, to be of his faculties, to forgo the numbness and the easy path. It was tugging on his sleeve with a snotty nose. It was standing in the hall with wet eyes and bloodied face. Oh Sai, standing there so brave, his parents dead.

This Miyo did not doubt, but demons? No. A soldier perhaps, one of the provincials that had been grumbling of late, wearing a stage mask in a dramatic and romantic gesture, he and his peers set upon the capital for revenge. This could well be the night of a new and long century of ceaseless petty wars, fought by small minded petty warlords. Whatever the future held, the night must first be gone through. Miyo squeezed Yabona's shoulder.

“It is too dangerous now, we will wait until morning.”

“No!” She shrugged off his hand, “they're dying Miyo, I couldn't help them and Fumhito is dead and Gin is fighting and Azami... I need my swords, I can go alone I'll be okay!” She started to run off to the practice room, to the sword racks.

“Wait!” Miyo gestured to Sai, and the boy grabbed Yabona as she ran passed.

“Master is right,” Sai said, “it is too dangerous.”

Yabona struggled. Sai was careful to direct his sword away from her.

Miyo was on them, he knelt down and went to wrap his arms around both, but stopped short, suddenly embarrassed. “We'll wait out the night, in the morning we'll all go together. Wherever you want.”

“No no no,” Yabona muttered and tried to pry off Sai's arm. “It will be too late, we have to go now!” Her voice rose into a screech, her struggle gained force. Miyo grabbed her under her arms and hauled her up, held her tight.

“Not tonight.”

“Let me go!”

Miyo wrapped his wiry arm around her neck, he squeezed. It was painful, difficult. Tears started to sting his eyes. He applied just enough pressure, and when she went limp he eased.

“What did you do,” Sai said with venom.

“She is only sleeping,” Miyo said. “She will wake soon, come help me.” And he set off, Sai trailed behind.

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He laid her down on his mattress, she came to seconds later.

“You can't help anyone tonight,” Miyo said, kneeling beside her.

Her lip trembled, she choked back sobs, nodded.

Poor thing, the fight gone out of her, trembling on his old mattress. On the mats she could stand like a lion, now she was every inch the child. Hurt, in shock.

“Try to rest, it will be a long night,” Miyo stood up and before he left his chambers he turned to Sai, “keep watch, and keep silent.”

The boy had knelt on his knees, sword laid across them. He nodded and would not take his eyes off Yabona.

Miyo had never considered having children of his own. When he was young his life was the school, as he aged he thought himself below everyone, undeserving of love. Now he felt as though he had formally adopted two.

It was graven, not joyous.

Here the world was slipping into chaos once more, or so it felt, so it looked down in the lower wards, and he had no trade to support them.

His swords rattled as he walked.

Except the one.

He was an old wretch, but he could still swing a sword. Son of late Yoshitaka, a man once renowned for winning more than sixty personal duels and uncommon valour on the field of battle. A man who had grown kind and wise in his later years, a man who would never let any harm to come to children like the two in Miyo's chambers.

Miyo would protect them, his grip on his sword was tight, his palm coated in sweat. If any of those provincial raiders crept up to the temple district he could deal with them. He had to believe that, despite the hardened core of doubt that lived in his heart. That big black stone that had accrued and solidified over this last decade and threatened to drown him, to root him to the ground and keep him there, like a worm, a beetle.

He would protect them through the night. The morning would bring what it would bring, and then the one after that.

Outside there were no longer any people in the streets, having decided it was best to hide and wait out the night. He walked the perimeter, keeping inside the estate boundary wall. On his third revolution two men were approaching the front gate. Miyo stopped, held up his hand.

“Who is it?”

There was no response. They moved awkwardly, as if wounded. One was armed with a spear.

“Stop there,” Miyo commanded.

They did not, they were pushing on the gate now. Miyo drew.

“Turn around and leave,” he brandished his blade, high and threatening.

They crossed the threshold and were not human.

Miyo acted. Quick. He split the one with the spear from shoulder to hip, and drawing back transitioned into a thrust to the throat of the other, twisting the blade horizontal and removing its head. This one was reaching out with pale bone like arms, sharpened to a point, and continued reach as it fell.

He had been holding his breath, and he let it out in one strong gust. Across the street something slithered over a wall.

The corpses were human only at a glance. Nude, pale, wrong. The too small eyes in the severed head rolled.

It's like Hell has poured out all its demons.

Miyo flicked the black blood from the edge of his sword, and he backed into the dojo.

It was too much to process.

Staying out of sight seemed prudent.

He alternated between the foyer and practice room all night, walking on the balls of his feet to reduce noise, pausing at the door to his chambers to listen for the soft breathing of his two pupils. He did not think, all of his attention was on the here and now, his breathing, the sounds from outside. Not even during his most trying bouts with his Father had he been so attentive, so attuned. It was a defence mechanism. Better now to do than to think. To think would be to go mad.

Five more of those things visited him, and each was dispatched in kind.

The frantic sounds of the night slowly died out, and by the early hours with the sun just peaking over the ocean there was only one or two lonesome shrieks.